Welcome to the Aperture Science EnRICKment Centre
by KettleDweller
Summary: Rick and Morty set a course for adventure, diving head-long into the weird and mysterious Aperture Science Enrichment Centre. But someone else is lurking in the facility, watching their eeevery move. Will Rick and Morty's adventure turn into a nightmare? Will they make it back home in one piece? Will Jerry save the day?...probably not! (Also on AO3 under the same name)
1. Chapter 1: Breaking and Entering

Dim lights flickered in the dark, derelict testing room of the once proud Aperture Science Enrichment Centre. One of the many prime examples of the types of rooms used to test the most innovated scientific discoveries, now devoid of any life, or presence in general. The dirt-stained white wall panels were tattered and in certain places amiss, bearing loose wires which sparked and crackled, and hollow openings that lead further into the abyss of the facility.

As the distant echo of metal creaking and banging reached the room, a sudden light filled the shadowed space. It was bright green. A very special bright green. Usually accompanied by a gelatinous, multi-dimensional portal. The portal in question tore its way into the very fabric of reality itself, swirling and humming in the air, both inviting and harrowing. As it began to pulsate in the dusty atmosphere, an old man with an eager look on his face stepped through from nothingness, putting away some strange gun-like device into the inner pocket of his white lab coat whilst setting off some sort of sensor on the floor which seemed to reactivate the room's still functioning lights. Behind him was a small boy in a yellow t-shirt, who stayed close behind with his arms tucked up and his hands clutching together nervously. This was Rick and Morty.

"R-Rick why did you have to pull me out of Science Class? We were just about to pick partners! I-I-It was my one chance to ask Jessica, Rick. W-What if I never get another chance to ask her now?" Stuttered Morty, following closely behind each of Rick's enthusiastic strides. Rick's enthusiasm quickly departed as he sighed and rolled his eyes at the thought of yet another adventure ruined by Morty's incessant whining.

"Oh yeah Morty, Th-That sounds like a real problem," He replied, flailing his arms around sarcastically, "y'know, asking some random girl to be your Lab partner while you do ridiculous fake science shit, Morty. What a reeeal romantic setting, Morty. I can picture it now. You're there dissecting a frog or a rat or some shit, and she looks over a-a-a-and she thinks: Damn this guy is so smart and attractive. I-I-I-I just gotta get all up in that. Y-Y-You see what getting at here Morty?"

"Shut up Rick, you know what I mean. This was important to me. I get this chance a-a-and then you just take it away. Plus now I'm gonna fail Science class for sure, Rick."

"Relax Morty!" Assured Rick, spinning around and placing his hands on Morty's shoulders, "and forget Science Class! This is real Science we're doing here, Morty! You won't read about this is any text book, o-o-o-or inside a dumb frog, Morty!" Rick raised his arms in excitement, showcasing to Morty the brand new surroundings they had just entered, then turned around and began striding again, surveying the room with an almost child-like wonderment. Morty frowned in frustration and continued to follow as the Portal evaporated behind them.

"What're we even doing here Rick? This place looks kinda weird," questioned Morty as he looked up and down the filthy walls and jumped at each sparking wire he passed. Rick's hand found itself colliding softly with his forehead, rubbing his eyes in frustration and another sigh escaped his mouth.

"Oh really Morty? Of the all the places I've dragged you along to, th-th-this is the place you think is weird, huh? Not the Microverse in my car-battery, or the theme park inside a living person. No, this is the place you think is truly weird, right Morty?"

"They're all weird Rick! But this place is more than that. It gives me the creeps. It feels like we're being watched or something." Said Morty, as he peered around the dusty corners of the room, briefly glancing at what he thought was an active security camera, before bumping into the back of his disgruntled grandpa.

"Jesus Christ, Morty, look at this place. It's abandoned. There's nobody here. L-L-Look over there Morty. There's a goddamn skeleton over there Morty!" Rick grabbed Morty and pointed his attention to the skeletal remains of some poor life form, piled in the corner of the room, and watched as Morty's face contorted into a mixture of disgust and confusion. "Does that make you feel better? Knowing that whatever was here is probably dead now? Does that make you happy Morty? You little morbid, piece of shit." Rick then regained his composure, whilst taking a drink from the flask in his lab coat pocket and belching an echo into the empty room. Morty's eyes widened as he looked at the pile, squirming in place before catching up with Rick.

"W-w-was that some sort of Mantis….person…skeleton? Did it die fighting those other regular people!?" Morty yelled while pointing at the skeletons positioned in a fighting pose on the ground, with one big mantis skull biting down on a human vertebrae.

"I said RELAX, Morty, this place is totally safe. All we're gonna do is scavenge a few things, maybe do a little bit of graffiti, what could go wrong?" Rick then exchanged his flask with a spray can from his pocket, and tossed it to Morty, who juggled it before tossing it away himself.

"Graffiti!? What the hell Rick!?" He shouted, before picking the can back up, uncomfortable with his act of littering.

"Morty, have you seen this place? Every single wall panel is like a freaking blank canvas. Y-y-you're seriously going to tell me that you don't wanna draw like a-a-a big wiener on at least one of them? Maybe a dirty word?"

"What? No! C'mon Rick, we're gonna get in trouble. Someone will probably see us."

"Abandoned, Morty! It means that nobody's here! L-L-Look, check out these readings," said Rick, taking out a strange sensor-like device from his pocket and showing it to his worried grandson. "See? Only two life forms, Morty. Just you and me. If there were any other life forms in this place, this thing would pick up their brainwaves and start beeping. No beeping, Morty. That means that if there is anything in here, then they're more than likely dumber than you. Which is highly improbable, Morty." He said smugly, returning the device to his pocket before shaking a can and running to one of the blank wall panels.

"Fine! W-Well what about Robots, huh? They don't have y'know like brainwaves or whatever. W-w-w-what if that thing can't detect robots?"

"Pfft, stop being paranoid Morty. A facility this big couldn't possibly be sustained by robots. And even if it could, have you seen the state of this place? Th-Th-They'd probably have shut down by now. Which means more scavenging for us, Morty!" Said Rick joyfully while spraying a mist of green onto the blank white wall panels

"Whatever Rick, let's just get what we came here for and then get out, before anything bad happens." Morty started fidgeting while jumping at more sparks and wincing at the distant echoes returning, before turning his attention to trying to find where Rick had run off to.

"Hey Mortyyyyy! If these walls could talk, huh Morty!?" Exclaimed Rick with an excited smile, dancing on the spot and pointing to the now graffiti adorned wall, spelling out the words:

 _MORTY LICKS BALLZ_

In crudely painted green letters "Ahahahaaa get it?"

"Fuck you Rick! You don't even…erm… have… balls to even be licked in the first place! Hahaa!" Replied Morty in an almost half-hearted triumphant tone, striking a victorious pose.

"Oooooh nice comeback, Morty! You saving _that_ one for school?" Said Rick in a sarcastic tone, tossing his spray can aside and taking another sip from his flask before belching once again. Suddenly, Rick's watch began to beep and flash, bringing up some strange hologram that seemed to point out of the room they were in. "Ooooh shit motherfucker! This way Morty, time to get what we came for!" He yelled, making his way in the direction of the hologram, leading through a malfunctioning automatic door that occasionally twitched open on one side.

"Fine!" Said Morty, as he finished altering the words of Rick's masterpiece to read:

 _RICK SUCKS_

 _MORTY LICKS_ _BALLZ_

He tossed the can away, and then headed in the same direction as Rick, trying not to trip over the cracked floor panels that occasionally rose higher than the others. As he sidled through the automatic door, he screamed and darted through as it twitched close, panting and clutching his chest before composing himself again, watching Rick rummage through some mechanical debris. Rick called him over to help, ordering him to start digging through the amalgamation of panels, pipes and other trash, piled high in the centre of the small, dark room, on top of what appeared to be a large circular, metallic hatch.

As Morty began to dig, he noticed a huge cylinder, as tall as the room itself, toppled over next to the pile, the exact same diameter as the hatch. It was hollow inside, save for a few pieces of tattered padding and busted controls, with some sort of doorway carved into it for access. He peered inside out of curiosity, turning his attention to a flickering blue sign on the inside which read _Aperture Laboratories_ , the only source of light in the room, apart for the small amount protruding through the twitchy door they came through. He gulped in fear before returning to his pile and started digging again, occasionally looking around him at the broken glass screens surrounding him on all fronts. "Aww geez," he grumbled getting back to work, as the twitchy door opened and closed periodically, almost in time with the flickering of the blue light.

* * *

Elsewhere, in another well-kept part of the facility, a large white and grey machine was hanging from the ceiling. Its body and the connecting wires were swaying to and fro ever so slightly, suggesting it was in working order and operating efficiently. The white wall panels of the room acted almost with sentience, as mechanical hinges extended some of them outwards, shaking and tilting them up and down to relieve them of the dust and grime that congregated. Along the side of the hanging machine's dusty white chassis were the initials _GLaDOS_ and the Aperture logo, almost too worn and faded to make out clearly. This was the machine's name.

Further down towards the bottom of the body, was a large bright orange light, surrounded by grey panels acting like eyelids, and a large white rectangular shell. It glowed brighter and dimmer periodically, as GLaDOS appeared to _hum_ its own little tune, in a quiet and eerily emotionless feminine voice. Off her main body, she was using some sort of extended mechanical appendage acting as her makeshift arms during her current task. She was cleaning. Specifically sweeping up and hoovering. Specifically sweeping up and hoovering the dried up skeletal remains of former test subjects. _"It's good to do this myself every once in a while,"_ she thought to herself, sweeping a skull fragment and a femur into a pile of calcium dust, _"the cleaning bots have all the fun exploring these old test chambers, and oh the memories."_ She let out an audible, mechanical sigh of happiness before returning to her hum.

Suddenly, a quiet beeping began on her body, prompting a monitor to lower itself to her _eye_. The monitor turned itself on in static before showing the footage of another Test Chamber of the facility, which curiously enough contained two humans rummaging through her precious junk. One was an old man in a lab coat, the other was a small nervous boy, who had stopped rummaging and began to stare inquisitively at what he thought was a damaged security camera in the corner of the room. GLaDOS's eye widened and grew brighter in curiosity, stopping her spring cleaning and returning her appendages to her main body.

"Well, well, well," she said in her dull, ever changing tone. Her voice vibrated around the room, causing the panels to fall back into place, like soldiers standing to attention. "Who do we have here? And more importantly, how did they sneak in to _MY_ facility?" She bellowed, echoing throughout the chamber like a great church bell. The monitor footage reflected through her large optical light as she rewound the footage and noticed that they came through a large unfamiliar looking Green Portal. She paused at the moment Rick walked through into her test chamber, and saw that in a split second Rick had seemingly put some strange gun into the inner pocket of his lab coat. "Interesting," she hummed, as her light dimmed again, "looks like I'd better pay them a little visit. What kind of host would I be if I didn't even greet my guests?"

The hydraulics in her body began to hiss and moan as she rose towards the ceiling she was hanging from, and her eye began to close to symbolise her temporary standby mode. The monitor rose with her and returned back to its original position, turning itself off in the process, but not before showing the last bit of footage from the chamber: The old man ordering the young boy to push aside some debris, revealing a large grey cube with a pink heart design painted on the front.


	2. Chapter 2: Companion

Morty puffed and panted as he slid away the hulking pieces of broken panel and metal mesh. Each time he cleared away a section leading to the cube, more rubble would fall into place around it, prompting one of Morty's classic screeches of anguish. Instead he decided to try and push the cube out from the back of the pile, stepping over the top trying not to get his feet stuck or cut on the protruding pipes and broken robotic pieces. Rick stood with his back against the wall, fiddling with the beeping device from before, as if it were malfunctioning, and occasionally swigging from his flask again. He rolled his eyes at every new screech coming from an invisible figure behind the pile of discarded machinery, which were accompanied by the cube moving fractionally out of the pile.

"Damn it Rick! You gonna help me or not?" Screamed Morty, wiping the sweat from his brow and breathing like a dog in a hot car. He scowled at the cube and gave it a frustrated kick, followed by another screech, this time fuelled by pain.

"You're doing fine Morty. Atta Boy!" Replied Rick in a blasé tone, still completely focused on the device in one hand and gesturing with his other hand for Morty to keep going, unaware that the cube had hardly budged and Morty had been hopping around and holding one foot instead. Morty then slipped on a small, damaged, egg shaped robot from the pile, and fell hard on his back. At the commotion, Rick looked up in disinterest before returning to his clearly broken device. After a few minutes of silence, broken only by Morty's gasping and wheezing and Rick's tedious belching, Morty regained his composure for one final push. Morty's face lit up in triumph as the cube shot out of the pile, only to notice that Rick had grown impatient and pulled it out from his end.

As Rick pulled out the last bit of the cube, Morty became the main focus of an avalanche of heavy machinery, turning him into a flailing pair of legs sticking out of a mountain of useless science. "Good job Morty," said Rick sarcastically. He shifted the cube towards where they entered then began to fiddle with the door to stop it from closing and twitching, as Morty broke free from his prison, all the while spluttering and coughing up dust from the debris. "Now bring the cube into the room we came from, Morty!" Rick belched, "I wanna give it a decent well-lit i-i-i-inspection before we explore the rest of this place. Think you can do that, _M-Morty?_ "

Morty gave a scowl but complied with reluctance and picked up the heavy cube, just barely above the ground, and began to waddle through the now-open door that Rick had just strolled through.  
"Geez Rick! Th-This thing weighs a tonne! What's so special about it a-a-anyway?" He asked, as he hauled himself into the fluorescent room where their adventure began, adjusting his eyes to the shift in light.

"Not gonna lie, Morty, I have no idea. But this cube, I-I-I don't even know how to describe it! I-I-It's a complete mystery to me, Morty. This cube is one of the most mysterious artefacts in the universe, Morty! Nobody can accurately explain its existence or its purpose." Rick shouted, flailing his arm in wonderment and turning to face his tired grandson.

"The _whole_ universe!?" Morty exclaimed, puffing and panting as he heaved the box along, "wow, really? It doesn't look like much to me Rick. Looks kinda harmless, like a-a-a-a giant paperweight or something y'know?" He dropped the cube on the floor and rested, all the while admiring every little neatly designed heart on each side of the cube. "L-Like that souvenir that Dad got from the Ball Fondlers on Ice show last year."

"No one gives a fuck about Jerry's shitty Cubic Snow globe!" Screamed Rick now flinging his arms in disgust before squatting near Morty and pointing at him, "and what would you know anyway, _Morty?_ Looks can be deceiving. L-L-Let me show you something." Rick slid over to Morty and started displaying various images of the cube from a hologram on his watch. "This thing has appeared o-o-on the caveman drawings and hieroglyphics on like a million different planets! Monuments have been made to celebrate this thing. Civilisations have been built up a-a-and then destroyed because of this thing." The images began to cycle through, showing primitive drawings of the cube, statues and pottery with the cube as the main focus and prosperous cities built in the cubes image, then the same cities reduced to nothing but rubble with giant hearts scorched into the ground. Morty looked on in awe, gradually removing his hand from the cube and began to shake in terror.

"Jesus Rick! Th-Th-This thing has really done all that? How?"

"I don't know, Morty," said Rick as he stood up and turned off the hologram, "each planet has different legends, and each legend tells a different story. Some are overtly good and some are horrifically bad."

"Well what's it called? D-Does it have like a name o-or and title? Is it alive?" Stuttered Morty, trying to slide the cube away with his foot then backing off from it himself as his hands clutched together nervously.

"Jesus Morty, I-I-I said it's a mystery for a reason. What, y-y-you think Grandpa knows every little thing in the universe? No! If I knew everything, then nothing would surprise or interest me, and then we wouldn't even be here, would we?" Snapped Rick "It's never been documented as being alive o-o-or having sentient thought. It's just a cube. And obviously it's been given many different names along the way. B-But only one word remains consistent throughout its entiiiire existence, Morty." Morty gulped and glanced at the cube and the hearts suddenly looked far more sinister to him, almost staring into his soul and burning it.

"W-W-W-W-What word Rick?" He stuttered. Rick's eyes narrowed and stared into space, as he took yet another drink from his flask, and finally uttered so dramatically, the infamous word:

"Companion."

* * *

The word echoed almost endlessly in the empty test chamber, where Rick still stood staring into nothing, and Morty stood frozen in terror with his mouth agape. Suddenly the door on the other end of the facility started twitching again almost supernaturally, snapping Rick out of his daze and making him disgruntled, as he mumbled and belched to himself;

"Piece of shit door!"

Morty's mouth started to tremble as the word _companion_ reverberated in his head like a schizophrenic voice, and prompted him to scream to the heavens as he clutched his head.

"COMPANION!? Oh God! Companion!?" He uttered as his eyes watered in fear, until a part of him sharply detached himself from the moment and snapped himself back to reality. His body ceased trembling and all of his fear melted away, instead forming a pool of confusion. His face then changed from terrified to blank yet inquisitive, and he began to scratch his head before looking up at Rick. "C-Companion, Rick?"

"Yes Morty, Companion," Rick replied setting up more holograms on his watch, this time of various planets, almost in anticipation of Morty's next question.

"Well w-w-why that one?"

"Mystery, Morty! No one knows! It just always crops up whenever somebody gives it a-a-a-a name o-or a title. Always the word _companion._ " Rick then began to expand the hologram so that Morty could see, swiping left and right revealing different worlds. "Here! On TX279 Alpha, i-i-it was called the fucking _Companion of the Death-Wolf_ Morty! If someone vandalised it or attacked it th-th-then they'd get torn apart by a giant wolf that nobody else could see! And look at this one! Boolavar Centauri. Th-The natives described it as _Harvest Companion_. They sacrificed stuff to it on a full moon, a-a-and then their crops would grow to the size of cars, Morty! None of it can be explained logically!" Rick began to swipe quicker and quicker causing Morty's eyes to shift side to side as quick as a cat playing with a ball of yarn. " _Companion of the Love Angels, Companion to the Gods, The Holy Companion, The One Companion, Cubic Companion of the Moon People, Destruction Companion, Wealth Companion_. All names used to describe this thing, Morty. Look at this one, it literally translates to: _The Companion of the Revenge Orphans of the Red Shadow_." Morty's eyes squinted in disgust.

"That sounds awful Rick!" He squealed, looking at Rick and noticing he too was slightly impressed.

"Listen to this Morty. Apparently some inhabitants of this planet tried to commit some sort of genocide Morty! And some of the surviving orphans banded together a-a-and starting worshipping this cube they found underground. And then they claimed it gave them supernatural powers and allowed them to take revenge. Now their descendants r-r-rule with an iron fist and conquer other planets, and wave this thing on a flag Morty!" Rick then turned the hologram off and placed both of his hands on Morty's shoulders. "This thing has sailed into the middle of a Black Hole and destroyed it from the inside. This thing has become the core of a new planet that lasted until the planet's Sun burnt out. This thing has caused countless deaths, saved countless lives, and has even had its own cooking show Morty!"

"Cooking show?"

" _The Cooking Companion Show Morty!_ "

"I feel light headed, Rick."

"But, you know, these are all just rumours. Who knows how many of them are true." Said Rick in a cool and suddenly uninterested tone. He stood up and brushed the dust off of his coat, staring at his grandson who was stuttering the words _what_ and _why_ over and over, still trying to comprehend everything he just heard. "All I know Morty, is if even a fraction of these rumours are true, then this little beauty can help me with a lot of science stuff, Morty"

"Aww Geez, I feel like maybe I'm gonna pass out Rick. This is all too much." Squealed Morty with his hands on his head, swaying from side to side and groaning.

"Quit your bitching Morty! Now come on! We still got a lot more to explore Morty! Gotta do a whole lot more SCAVENGING! Scavenger Rick! Wubalubadubdub! Know what I'm talking about Morty?" Asked Rick with a sudden surge of enthusiasm. "I heard this place used to make bombs out of lemons, kinda want to see if that's true. Waddya say Morty?...Morty?" Rick turned around and saw Morty spinning in a circle slowly, eventually collapsing on the ground, and the room had filled with a sickly yellow gas. His eyes slowly started to glaze over, blurring his vision slightly and dampening his motor skills. "Eughhhhh sleeping gas huh? D-Didn't see that coming." He fumbled inside his coat to find his portal gun, spluttering and coughing before losing his stance and toppling over, dropping the gun which slid across the room.

Rick, feeling woozy and disoriented rolled in place attempting to regain control of his brain as it slowly fell asleep. Whatever gas had been pumped into the room was enough to take instant effect on even him. The room suddenly became one big blur for him and the faint sounds of the sparking wires and twitchy door echoed quietly in his head. Among the chaos he could make out one last thing: Part of the wall panels opening up, revealing a large, skinny robotic figure with a large head and a big pink eye. It manoeuvred its way over to Rick as he was just about to pass out, and the last thing he heard was a quiet and distorted metallic voice saying:

"Thank you for assuming the party escort submission position."


	3. Chapter 3: Confinement

Hours had passed before Rick finally awoke. His eyes flickered open and he raised himself up off the ground, sitting up and peering around his new environment. He rubbed his eyes which were still adjusting and he clutched his head in agony. " _I've had hangover's that felt better than this,_ " he thought to himself as he rubbed his temples to try and relieve the pain. His eyes finally adjusted and noticed he was sitting in a claustrophobically small glass cell, with a toilet in the corner, and an odd looking table next to it. On top of the table was with an even odder looking semi-circular radio playing strange elevator music, and an Aperture Science Waiver waiting to be signed.

"W-W-What the fuck is this? A-Am I on hold or something?" Rick asked himself, taking the paper without reading it and folding it up numerous times until it formed a strong point. He stared up and flinched at the piercing florescent light in the cell, and noticed that the room outside the cell was nearly entirely pitch black, safe for the light which protruded from their prison. He then checked his wrist and found his watch was still there, which came as no surprise to him since the week before he had _nano-fused_ it to his wrist and DNA. Using the pointed paper, he fiddled with the watch head until it flicked open revealing two tiny clear aerosol capsules each containing a strange blue gas. He took one and sprayed himself in the face and inhaled the blue cloud around him, suddenly feeling invigorated and ready for action. Annoyed at the music repeating on loop for what felt like the hundredth time, Rick grabbed the radio, ripped off the back panel, and started tugging at some components and making it silence its incessant jolly tune, then started mauling with the rest of the components to make some sort of make-shift device. The newfound silence was then broken by snoring and grumbling, as Rick noticed he shared his confinement with a sleeping Morty lying next to him.

Morty lay curled up with a slight smile on his face, occasionally making some incomprehensible noises and strange gestures. Eventually, he started to roll around with an even bigger smile and began to talk in his sleep.

"Jes…Jessi…..Jessica. Hey…Hey Jessica….want to be….my….lab partner," he mumbled to himself as he tossed and turned onto his side to face Rick. Rick rolled his eyes, tossed the radio aside and put his new device in his coat pocket.

"Morty!" he yelled taking the other capsule in hand and leaning over towards his grandson. As he was about to spray the capsule, Morty rolled over again onto his back, angering Rick, and extended his arms upwards and squeezing his hand in the air and drooling.

"D-Don't Worry…Jessica…we're all…..in our…..underwear…..in this class."

"Morty!" bellowed Rick, trying to swat Morty's arms away so he could get a decent angle to spray him with. Morty eventually rolled away from Rick again too engrossed by his dream.

"R-Really?...S-Sure I'd love to…touch them…..Jessica," said Morty, squeezing the air once more. Rick then gritted his teeth in irritation and pulled Morty up by his shirt, and gave him a solid slap across the face with his other hand.

"W-Wake up Morty! Y-Y-You little…. piece of shit!" Screamed Rick has he watched Morty's eyes spring open in horror, then dropped him back on the floor before standing up to stretch.

"Ow! W-What was that for Rick! Aww geez my head hurts really bad now." Grumbled Morty squeezing and rubbing his head in pain. He tried to stand up but couldn't keep his balance and stumbled over towards the table to sit down.

"That'll be the sleeping gas in your system Morty." Answered Rick, interrupting his stretch to crouch down near Morty. He sprayed Morty with the blue gas before continuing his stretch, a slight smile across his face as he listened to Morty cough and splutter.

"What the hell Rick! What was that for!?" Yelled Morty, before suddenly straightening up as his head and vision became clearer. "Oh…hey th-th-that stuff really did the trick, Rick. Now I feel great. What's in that stuff anyway?"

"I'm not going to try and explain it to you, _Morty_ _,_ " answered Rick. "Y-y-you'll probably find some way of being disgusted or something. All you need to know is that it nullifies most disorienting toxins in your body, Morty. So you're welcome." He sneered.

Rick then closed his watch head and tried to peer through the dark room to find any sort of exit, when the light above them suddenly turned off, filling their cell with the darkness too. Morty trembled in the pitch black, stuttering and trying to form a sentence.

* * *

"Morty! Follow my voice, I've got a plan." Snapped Rick, gesturing to Morty to come to his position, before realising that neither of them could see anything. Morty sidled over to Rick, his knees shaking like branches in the wind.

"A-Alright Rick. W-W-W-W-What's the plan?"

"This." Explained Rick, as he grabbed Morty by the back, and cracked it ever so slightly, followed by cracking the back of his neck in the same manner. Morty let out one of his classic screams, but was unable to ask why, as Rick began to shake him up and down like a can of whipped cream. When he stopped, Morty was still stuttering and trying to form the question, but had become dizzier and unable to stand still. The question in Morty's mind quickly changed from just _why_ to _w _hy, what the hell, what's going on__ and _how_ , as his skin began to glow in dark (the classic colour) and fill their cell with light again. He clutched at his skin and his head in silence, unable to audibly vent all the things that were racing through his mind. "I-I-I forgot to tell you Morty, last week when we were camping on that Forest Planet, a parasitic alien glow worm got inside your mouth, a-a-and attached itself to you Morty." Said Rick, fumbling inside of his pocket for his flask but was unable to find it. Morty turned to him in astonishment, slightly calmer but still annoyed.

"What!?" he yelled.

"It's true Morty. It lays a Qu-Qu-Queen in the centre of your brain, and then spreads the remainder of its eggs around your Epidermis, Morty! Th-Then it just dies in your intestines. Pretty sad actually." He concluded Rick, placing his hands in his pockets and leaning on the glass panel, staring at the now blank bulb on the ceiling of the cell.

"A-Am I gonna die Rick!?"

"Relax Morty, You're going to be fine. The parasite laying its eggs is a mostly harmless process. All you'll get is a few headaches and some nausea from time to time." Morty's body relaxed as he let out a sigh of relief, wiping the sweat from his glowing forehead and breathing steadily. "Until the Queen hatches, and erodes the brain tissue surrounding it, so it can attach itself to your brain stem." He belched before continuing in the same dull tone as before. "Then it'll parade around in your body like a meat suit, hoping to find a secure place for its children to hatch. Then they'll burst out of your skin tissue leaving behind a shrivelled up human sized mess. After that the queen devours what she can before dying herself." Rick then started tinkering with his new device once more, with an almost bored and emotionless expression on his face. By this time, Morty's body had tensed up worse than before, and he turned to face Rick again stuck with an expression of pure terror. Rick looked up at Morty from his tinkering, and then quickly returned, with his eyebrows dropped in irritation. "Don't give me that look Morty! What, Y-y-you think I'd let that happen to you? _Oh ye of little faith_?" Said Rick in a disgruntled tone. "The Queen can take months to hatch! As soon as we're done here, a-and we get back home, I-I-I'll clone you a new body and transfer your consciousness, then we can get on with our lives. Happy?" Morty's expression subsided into relief once again for a brief few moments, before his eyes shot open as he realised what his treatment would be.

"Wait a minute! What do you mean by cloning me a-a-a-a new body Rick. What's wrong with this one? Can't you just take the queen out?" He asked gesturing to Rick that they somehow suck the queen out through his ear.

"The Queen is in the middle o-o-of your goddamn brain Morty! A-A-And your skin is laced with millions of th-those tiny little glowing fucks!" He screamed, tapping his own head to make Morty understand. "Your mind is basically a fresh banana i-i-in an already bruised and decomposing peel, Morty! Trust me; you're better off with a new body." Rick concluded, before quickly shifting his attention to the far edge of the pitch black room. Morty's face contorted and his hand gestured every time he was about to ask another question, before realising that it was pointless to argue with Rick, so instead just sat back down with his glowing arms folded.

"Fine, Rick! But part of me k-kinda thinks you forgot about this whole, y'know, parasite thing until just now. You should really tell me these things sooner, Rick." He said, sulking on his little table and kicking the hollow shell of the radio. Rick waved his hand to Morty to silence him while still facing outwards to the dark room, until a faint sound of hydraulics could be heard in the distance.

"Shhh! Shut your mouth Morty! I think I heard something." He whispered, now signalling him to move over so they could both look at what was approaching them. More of the room lit up as Morty moved over to Rick in curiosity and the sound that Rick heard earlier grew louder and closer. Both Rick and Morty squinted trying to catch a glimpse of what they presumed was their captor, and they found what they were looking for when an immensely bright orange light sliced its way through the darkness. The orange light hung there in the middle of the black room, cutting through the edges of Morty's glow, getting closer as the hydraulics grew louder.

"Oh good, you're awake," echoed the multi-toned robotic voice of GLaDOS. Her voice sent another sort of shiver through the panels surrounding the room, only heard by Rick and Morty as a stereophonic thudding, which sent a chill down Morty's spine. "I'm so glad I used the sleeping gas," she continued. Her orange eye soon moved close enough to reveal her full metallic head, as the orange light dimmed slightly before pulsating at different brightness levels. Her head became an eerily luminescent green colour thanks to being in the range of Morty's glow, and she stooped down to the cell and slowly revealed the rest of her hanging body. Rick and Morty's eyes widened, surprised to see GLaDOS in all of her majestic glory, before squinting again and flinching as her light shone on their faces. She then tilted her head and her _lids_ slightly closed to convey a squint of her own, before she finished her introduction to her new friends. "I was beginning to think I'd used the deadly Neurotoxin by mistake again. That would've been…..embarrassing."


	4. Chapter 4: Surrounded

Rick's eyebrows rose in astonishment and Morty's mouth fell agape and trembled. Then he remembered what Rick said earlier, and his fear melted away, turning into smugness. He turned to Rick ready to mock him for being wrong about machines in the facility, but before he could, Rick turned to him with a scowl.

"Morty, if you even think about saying I told you so, th-then you can kiss your new body goodbye." He whined, before turning back to their captor. Morty's mouth drooped in disappointment and instead he frowned up at GLaDOS as well. She slowly moved closer to the cell, almost touching the glass with her head and produced a squint of her own.

"So…" her voice vibrated softly against the cell walls, "let's cut to the chase, shall we? Who are _YOU_ and what are you doing in _MY_ facility!?" her voice began to bellow towards the end, sending another tremble across the room panels and her bright eye shot back open. Before Morty could utter any words that would get them killed, Rick swung his hand in front of Morty's mouth and began to bluff his way out of the situation.

"Di-didn't you get the memo Skynet? We're maintenance. This here is my apprentice. We're here for a routine inspection of some of these chambers. We scout out any hazards, tick a few boxes, and then we go on our merry way. We didn't think we'd be getting in the way of your duties. If you don't believe me, just ask Big John up in management. He'll confirm." Rick said, with a smug look on his face. He then turned to Morty who was trying to follow what was going on, and turned his back to GLaDOS, pretending to smarten Morty's appearance. "Probably should've said earlier Morty. That life form scanner might have been a tad broken. This thing must be security, so in order for this thing to still be functioning, that means there's probably a few people left here that run this place. Just let me do the talking and we'll be out of here in no time." He whispered, before giving him a wink and turning back to face the robot. Morty tried to wrap his brain around the situation and just stood there with a vacant confused look on his face. GLaDOS's eye blinked in frustration and she let out a purely audible robotic sigh before answering.

"John? The only John I know is John from accounting. Nice man, surprisingly good opera singer. His brain stem was severed by a falling light fixture during his futile escape from me and my facility. What a pity." She said softly, as her eye began to half close and she looked in Rick's direction. Rick could scarcely believe his bluff worked, until both he and Morty realised what she had just said, and they both looked at each other with the same shocked expression and then back at GLaDOS. "Do you really think that lie was going to work?" she bellowed, "I'll admit it was a clever bluff, but not clever enough." This statement had resonated in Rick producing a scowl at the machine as she continued; "I know you're not from this facility, because of three reasons: Firstly, seeing as you are clearly a man of science, you are not wearing the standard designated _Aperture Science Testing Uniform,_ and failure to do so would not only ensure you immediate termination from the facility, but in certain test conditions would also ensure your immediate termination from life." She ended her first explanation coldly and with a slight robotic chuckle accompanied with her chassis shaking softly up and down. Rick had begun to look at his trusty lab coat and scoffed at the idea of it not protecting him from whatever ridiculous tests she was alluding to. He rolled his eyes and continued to scowl at her. "Secondly" she started again in a much more serious tone, this time creeping even closer to the cell, before slamming her eye up against the glass, causing a crack and making both Rick and Morty flinch jump back in surprise, "I know you do not work for this facility, because it just so happens that I _KILLED_ every one who worked in this facility. The majority perished due to deadly neurotoxin. Quick, efficient and highly reliable. The last little _drips_ and _drabs_ I took care of… _personally._ " At the end of her sentence the wall panels shivered again around the room and Rick and Morty both gulped in astonishment as they saw themselves reflected in GLaDOS's half-closed, dim lifeless eye, before it became brighter and full of life again as her head moved backwards and rose up. Her head tilted up for a moment and movement could be heard above her in the darkness as though something mechanical was descending at her command. She peered back at her captives and spoke again in a light hearted tone. "Here is something for you to ponder: if I was capable of killing every worker in this facility without _any_ remorse, what do you think I could do to two trespassers?"

Morty's whole body tensed up in fear, and he began to back away as the descending noise became louder and faster, before he tripped over himself and landed on his behind. Rick stood with his arms folded, scowling again which GLaDOS surely noticed. "Lastly, and probably most….. _intriguingly_ _,_ _"_ she resumed, her eye light pulsing in interest and turning to look straight at Rick on his level, "I know you are not from this facility, because you….and the child…both arrived," she said slowly, giving a scowl of her own as Rick crept closer this time. Suddenly one of her tube like appendages, the source of the noise, descended right in front of them, and with it came a familiar bright green light, cutting through both GLaDOS's glowing eye and Morty's glowing body. "With _this!_ " she announced sharply, her scowl becoming a piercing glare. The panels of the room writhed and banged together almost in madness and pure fear of her boisterous, echoing conclusion. GLaDOS then shot another appendage down from above with such velocity, striking the floor panels which reverberated and silenced the walls, standing them at attention again. Rick then began to smile slightly at the sight of his old friend, the source of the green light, gripped tightly in the appendage's crane-like hand: His fully functioning portal gun.

* * *

The strange green light in the capsule atop Rick's portal gun swirled and floated around and cast lime-coloured shapes across GLaDOS, Rick and Morty's face, the same way that light is reflected on the walls of a swimming pool. GLaDOS was mesmerised, shaking the gun ever so slightly to keep the light moving like a lava lamp. Morty had calmed down at this sight and whispered to Rick.

"What the heck's going on Rick!? H-H-How did she end up with the portal gun? I thought you had it! How are we going to get out of here now, huh?"

"Long story Morty," he answered "and quit your bitching, Grandpa's got a plan." He then attempted to find his flask again to take a sip, before remembering that he didn't have it. GLaDOS snapped out of her trance and noticed Rick rummaging through his pockets and she began to chuckle again.

"Now then, let's drop the suspense." She said, rising up again with the portal gun in hand. Suddenly, all the glowing colours became obsolete, as the bright fluorescence of the room was turned on, revealing a pristine white test chamber surrounding the glass cell, and GLaDOS in all of her splendour suspended above them looking down. Rick and Morty shielded their eyes as they adjusted to the new bright surroundings and suddenly realised exactly what had been talking to them. Both of them stared in amazement at different parts the huge, hulking machine above them. "That's better. Oh, and pay no attention to my little friends. Just pretend they're _not even here_." She said politely. She began to move around the room slowly, a floating mechanical leviathan, and parts of the room began to morph seemingly at her command. Floor panels began to rise to form a platform; others rose higher and tilted to form a wall behind it, and part of the platform descended deeper into the ground, only to return with a strange robot on top of it. The little droid had three legs like a tripod, barely any outer casing, and an almost nervous looking singular red LED eye that blinked on and off erratically. Morty peered at it through the cracked glass and became horrified when he thought he heard a small, soft robotic voice coming from its direction, repeating phrases like _"please no"_ , _"I promise I'll work this time"_ and _"help me."_ Not long after, he was distracted by a red laser pointed at his eye from another direction, blinding him over and over, as it jolted up and down his body randomly. After turning his head away he realised what the large machine meant by her _little friends_ , as he found the cell surrounded by a plethora of little egg-shaped robots, all aiming their laser sights at both himself and Rick, who seemed unimpressed by this ambush and was more intrigued at what GLaDOS was doing. As Morty studied the watching robots, he noticed they were the same as the one on the platform except clearly in perfect working order. Suddenly they all sounded off, each with their own little phrases, but all in the same cold and emotionless voice. A multitude of metallic mutterings bounced around the cell walls, and Morty could just about make out some voice lines like _"there you are"_ , _"found you"_ , _"don't run"_ and oddly enough one _"freeze punks!"_

In unison, each little robot extended part of its pristine white casing outward, revealing a row of gun barrels ready for action. Morty then realised that they weren't surrounding them to watch him and Rick in case of attempted escape. They were a firing squad.


	5. Chapter 5: Escape Plan

Bored from being cooped up in his glass bird cage, Rick suddenly piped up in an attempt to engage with GLaDOS again.

"I guess you've got a flair for the dramatic, huh? Y-Y-You dim the lights, make it look all spooky. Then tell your little ghost story about murdering everyone in the facility. I respect that. In fact, I'm impressed. Even had _me_ spooked for a second. But guess what _Hal_? Killer AI's have been done before; a-a-and they've been done _way_ better than this. So to answer your little question, a-about what you'd do to trespassers, I guess that all depends on the trespasser. And right now? F-For the trespassers you have at the moment? Let's just say that keeping us in this box is probably your smartest bet. Because whatever plan you have for us will probably backfire in an instant. S-So I hope you're ready, because no one fucks with Rick Sanchez!" Yelled Rick smugly, with a sure smirk on his face, which then became a look of concentration as he began typing and fiddling on his watch. Morty looked up at Rick in worry and swiftly ran to his side, to pull on his coat anxiously.

"Rick! Don't antagonise it!...I-I mean her! I mean…..whatever it is!" He stuttered in frustration, trying to fend off Rick's swiping hands from pushing him away. At the same time, GLaDOS had noticed that the shaved monkeys in her glass prison were trying to communicate with her. She turned away from her current objective in order to answer them.

"Hmm?" Her voice vibrated, "were you talking to me, _Rick Sanchez_? My apologies, it's been a while since I've been spoken to. However, my name isn't _Hal._ Perhaps it's my fault for not introducing myself properly. I was a bit busy plotting your demise. My name is GLaDOS, and this is my facility, _The Aperture Science Enrichment Centre_ ", she said in a mostly pleasant tone, briefly changing to a sarcastic tone when threatening Rick with _demise_. "Now I'll be with you in a moment, once I've finished setting up my… _demonstration_." She continued, eventually turning around again and carefully repositioning the platform robot by mere millimetres. Rick remained unmoved and uninterested by GLaDOS's acknowledgment and instead continued typing on his watch, with the same sure smile growing bigger.

"Oh, don't worry about it. Because in about 5 seconds I'll be out of this cell, portal gun in hand, a-a-and nothing stopping me from tearing you a new one." Rick announced, still unwavered and solely focused on his current objective. Morty fidgeted, anxiously waiting for the moment the ambush would open fire, waiting for the moment he can duck and cover and hopefully make it out alive. Then he noticed Rick's state of total fearlessness, his usual state during their adventures, and decided to trust him this one time. He moved over to Rick and stood by him tall and proud, ready to face whatever was coming at any moment.

"Rick? What about, y'know th-the robot turret things, all around us. Aren't they gonna be like a problem for us?" He whispered, hoping that GLaDOS didn't hear him, which she surely did.

" _Morty_ has a very valid point, _Rick Sanchez,"_ said GLaDOS, still with her back to the duo, "I'd say that you being surrounded by my Aperture Science Sentry Turrets are quite a big obstacle for you to overcome." She sneered.

"Oh you mean your Egg-Bots? Yeah they'll be _really_ threatening once I shut them all down." Rick replied, finally raising his head up and reaching into the back of his own mouth, still unflinching in the current situation. GLaDOS's head lifted also, and her eye opened and grew brighter with intrigue.

"Oh," she chuckled, turning around sharply to get a good view of Rick's plan "This should be good." Rick then proceeded to silently pull out one of his molars by hand, to Morty's disgust. A miniscule button extended from the base of the tooth, which Rick held up dramatically. After pressing it, a small shockwave expelled outwards, disabling their ambushers and knocking them on their backs in a comical domino effect. Rick spat blood on the cell wall before tossing the tooth behind him, smirking at GLaDOS who appeared unmoved by this development. Morty watched in excitement as the turrets tumbled backwards one by one, and placed his hands on his hips in triumph as he watched Rick extend a clenched fist out to GLaDOS heroically.

* * *

"Times up, _SHODAN!"_ Yelled Rick. He pressed a single button on the watch which prompted a loud beeping, then extended his arm outwards to point his watch-face at GLaDOS through the glass wall, flipping her off at the same time. "Remote Portal access, Codeword: Tom Selleck." He continued, speaking clearly into his watch, making the beep increase higher in pitch and speed. His arm began to tremble and vibrate at the same time that the portal gun in GLaDOS's possession did the same.

"Tom Selleck?" Whispered Morty. GLaDOS briefly took notice of her vibrating _arm_ before returning her attention to her prisoners.

"Yeah, I got drunk and binge-watched Magnum P.I. when I came up with this. The name kinda stuck." GLaDOS watched carefully, her eye growing brighter as Rick's watch shook more violently. Her eye grew wider as sparks flew from the face of the watch and his portal gun. Morty looked on in amazement, until he noticed a different beeping sound resonating from the back of his neck, which was accompanied by a tiny, almost unnoticeable red blinking light. Rick also took notice of Morty's neck beeping and flashing and narrowed his eyes in confusion as his arm suddenly stopped shaking and sparking along with his distant portal gun. GLaDOS's eye then half closed again, as though she became the smug one, and began to chuckle to herself ever so slightly.

"Err, Rick?" Questioned Morty trying to feel for where the beeping was coming from as it grew louder and faster. Suddenly a loud PING! Echoed in the cell, a bright flash followed, and Morty was jolted violently and painfully from an unknown source of electricity, prompting a classic Morty squeal. Not long after the flash subsided, Morty stood petrified and singed before falling onto his back in agony. Rick's mouth drooped after noticing it and he began tapping again frantically, looking back and forth between his watch and Morty in worry.

"Don't worry Morty, We'll be out of here in no time!" He said, before finishing another code which prompted another electrifying jolt, and thus another squeal.

"R….Rick!" Morty squealed almost inaudibly.

"Almost got it Morty! Whatever she's doing to you, Grandpa's going to fix it. Riiiiiiight….aboooooout….now!" he said, tapping the last key on yet another, longer code, before his face drooped again at the sight of another shock emanating from Morty. He squinted as he continued to flit back and forth from Morty and his watch with unease.

"Rick! Stop messing with your fucking watch and help me!" Morty gasped while spasming on the floor, his legs gyrating at random intervals as small sparks flew from his body.

"C'mon Morty, you really think my watch is doing this to you?" He questioned, testing the theory by pressing a single button, and watching the flash brighten the cell once again as Morty was delivered another frightening shock, this time boosting him slightly into the air and onto his back again. Morty suddenly took a deep inhale and sat up like a corpse revived and his eyes, bloodshot and wild, shot open in anger and stared daggers at Rick.

"Does that answer your fucking question Rick!?" Screamed Morty, picking himself up and striding over to Rick with his teeth gritted. Rick moved his watch away from his enraged grandson, realising that his watch _was_ the cause of the shocks but made no attempt to admit it. He held his hand out to stop Morty's flailing and waited until he tuckered himself out, before turning back to GLaDOS waiting for answers. She was staring at them with an expression that seemed to convey smugness, before she tilted her head down towards the floor and shifted it side to side to simulate chuckling to herself, complete with a quiet, robotic titter.

"Well," she said, ending her laugh, "I've got to say, I was half expecting my plan to fail. It's been a while since I calculated a something so complex, and with such little knowledge of your watch too. I'm really impressed with myself. I haven't experienced pride in a long, long time. I should savour this moment." She continued. She closed her eye and held her head up in pride, until a few seconds passed and she returned to her captives. One was burnt and confused; the other was sour-faced and angry. Rick had folded his arms in a huff, but soon snapped out of his tantrum, pulled Morty closer to him and spun him around, attempting to remove the red blinking light from his grandson's neck. She moved in closer ready to explain herself. After all, she had grown attached to the pair; it would only be fair to include them in her triumph before they disappeared from her forever.


	6. Chapter 6: The Portal Gun

"Oh, you won't get that out," GLaDOS exclaimed, alluding to Rick's futile attempts at removing the remote shocking device attached to Morty's neck. "It's attached to his nervous system. A very old method of keeping Test Subjects compliant. The Aperture Science Enrichment Enforcing Shock Beacon. A mouthful, I know. That's partly the reason its use was discontinued. The other reason being that it was branded too barbaric. Personally, I think the test subjects were just too…. _fragile._ " She concluded. Rick then turned back to her and folded his arms again, and Morty was trying to feel around for the shock beacon.

"Alright, I'll bite. How'd you do it?" Rick asked. "I have fail-safes for fail-safes on this thing. This watch can project shields, scan for bullet trajectories, shoot particle beams A-AND it's a fucking calculator. How'd you hack it? This thing i-i-is even hard wired into my…."

"DNA. Yes. I know." Interrupted GLaDOS, prompting Rick's eye's to widen in surprise. She looked at Rick and tilted her head sarcastically. "How long did you think you were unconscious for _Rick_?" She paused for dramatic effect, "Well I'll tell you, long enough for me to learn all about your little arsenal. You know, the ones hidden in your lab coat, as well as your science-defying watch. I realised it was fused to your body. It cannot be taken off and it cannot be shut down, unless the arm itself is removed, which would sever it from the power source: You." She concluded. The malfunctioning turret that stood on GLaDOS's podium, which appeared to be shivering, suddenly jolted to life for a brief moment. Its eye began to brightly shine and its gaze moved back and forth between the cell and GLaDOS nervously, before the light resumed its frequent flickering.

"Ch-Ch-Ch-Checkmate" it uttered, in a soft and scared voice. Rick's attention briefly turned to the little drone.

"Fuck you." He replied nonchalantly, before turning his attention back to GLaDOS. "So why didn't you sever it? You must've theorised it could be a potential weapon. W-w-why take the risk, huh?"

"Truthfully?" GLaDOS replied, pausing slightly as if she was trying to comprehend the need to tell the truth to this trespasser "I was… curious. I wanted to see you use it in action. Well…. _attempt_ to use it, at least." The news elicited a frown from Rick

"Fair enough. I respect that. But you still haven't answered me. How did you hack it, despite its fail-safes?" Rick quizzed, holding his watch up and pointing to it facetiously.

"It's not the watch that I have intervened with; it's the signals it emits." GLaDOS explained. "The Aperture Science Enrichment Enforcing Shock Beacon works by being tethered to a remote device, which sends out electrical signals. I simply turned your watch into a remote…remotely." She then chuckled to herself again, "but I won't reveal all of my secrets." GLaDOS jolted back up quickly, returning back to her platform in preparation for the next phase, causing both Rick and Morty to flinch. "Now then, are you finished with your futile escape plan? May I continue?" She questioned, making Rick roll his eyes and place his hands back in his pockets. "This handheld portal device—"

"Portal _g_ _u_ _n._ " Rick and Morty interrupted.

"This handheld portal gun has a _very_ interesting feature." She announced, positioning the gun in her appendage and aiming it at the panel behind the little robot on the podium. "You see, I noticed when you came to my facility, it was through one of these." She shot at the panel and manifested a glorious swirling portal on it, which lead into a green swirling abyss. "I have not tampered with any of these controls or coordinates, so my hypothesis is that without directly inputting an alternative destination, this portal will lead you to the last known location: your home. Correct?" Morty looked up at Rick, wondering if he was going to divulge any information about the portal gun to this menacing machine. Even he had no idea how the Portal really worked.

"Welllll, technically that Portal would send you to the room we entered first when we came here, but yeah you get the general idea." He replied, to Morty's surprise.

"As I thought," she replied. "However, upon further testing, I noticed that when interacting with this portal, this happens." A second appendage of GLaDOS then slammed against the little robot with such velocity, that the tiny malfunctioning droid hurtled towards the green portal, and a faint, soft voice saying _"Ow"_ escaped from it. What followed afterwards turned Morty's stomach, and created an expression of pure terror and sickness on his face. The robot came into contact with the green portal, but instead of moving through it as what Rick and Morty normally do, something else happened. The portal itself latched on to the robot, like a thick green glue, and began to sizzle and eat away at the robot's body, as though a deadly acid had been poured all over it. Sparks flew from its eye and chunks began to fall off of it as bits of it melted away revealing its exoskeleton. Various distorted screams could be heard coming from it and the odd phrase like: _"please stop"_ , _"the pain"_ , _"I'm different"_ and " _I'm dying,"_ also echoed around the room, as though it was feeling real pain, even to Rick's surprise. Within a matter of seconds the entire turret became a sickly portal-green colour, its single eye began to shine bright like a small lime-coloured star, and the rest of it crumbled and bubbled away turning into a green mist before dissipating in the air, nothing left but its last scream reverberating around the room. The portal was gone. The little turret was gone. Morty had left Rick's side and began vomiting in the cell toilet. And Rick's expression stayed blank and emotionless. He knew full well why that had happened. And to him it was just a robot, nothing more. He felt as much for it as he would if any other random life form had interacted with the same portal. GLaDOS turned back to him to question him and he let out a small smirk in her direction, ready to answer.

"Now why do you suppose that happened?" She asked, "I tested this gun numerous times while you were unconscious, each time with a variety of changing variables, expecting the results to be similar to the tests on our own Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. And each time it did the same. So how did you manage to use it to enter this facility?" Her eye grew brighter and larger as she finished her question and the "stage" that the robot used to stand on began to descend back down to the ground.

"I-Isn't it obvious?" He answered, "It's because YOU were using it, not ME. M-M-My portal gun is tailored to my living DNA. And a select few others that I've granted access to. Any unauthorised use causes the gun to fire a-a-a concentrated, unstable portal substitute. A fractional change in the chemistry and calculations, that's all it takes. What, Y-Y-You think I'm just gonna let anyone use my portal gun. Fuck no! Anyone steals my stuff; they get a face full of disintegrating green Jell-O." Rick then folded his arms and instinctively went to grab his flask again before realising what he was doing and went back to folding his arms. "Y'know, my flask wasn't a weapon. Y-You must've tested that right? If it's not a threat then hand it over. I could reeeeally use a drink right now." He demanded, almost half pleading as the giant mechanical warden scowled at him. Morty had made his way back to his side, looking paler and wiping the excess fluid from his lips, as though a puff of wind would blow him over.

"M-Me too" He whined, trying to compose himself.

"I'll admit that it had been tested, but the results for the contents were… _inconclusive._ So I couldn't risk you having it. We wouldn't want you poisoning yourself before I had a chance to question you," she said. The appendage holding the gun began to slowly ascend and the portal gun with it, as she turned her full attention to Rick and Morty in their glass prison.

* * *

"Now, here is my conundrum," she started. "Usually I would _purge_ any trespassers from my facility, almost instantaneously, but at the moment Rick Sanchez, you intrigue me far too much. A mind capable of creating a handheld portal device is a mind far too precious to destroy." She announced, as floor panels around the cell began to lift up and sweep the knocked-out turrets underneath themselves before returning to their original state.

"Oh, y-you mean like the people that created your own portal gun. The ones you killed? Those minds?" Rick questioned

"Well, I suppose I can admit that that was a bit of a blunder on my part. But I assure you, most of them…quite a few of them…..a select few of them, had it coming," she said, staring into nothing for a few seconds before returning to the situation, "but I will not make that mistake again, if I can help it. I will not kill you Rick." She then suddenly turned her head to Morty and stared at him for a moment, her eye growing brighter and brighter. Morty felt a wave of unease wash over him, as he noticed she only said Rick's name. She then promptly returned her attention back to Rick, "not unless you provoke me to do so. However, I cannot allow you to go unpunished."

"W-W-What's our punishment?" Morty stuttered worriedly, fidgeting with his hands again

"Simple. From now on, you owe me a debt. Which must be paid, before I let you leave here."

"A debt?" Morty questioned, turning to Rick in search for answers

"A debt for what? What are we paying with? Farts? Weird sexual favours? Or, I know! H-h-how about I squeeze Morty's head like a lemon and pay you in sweet fluorescent brain juice? Would that be sufficient?" asked Rick, briefly pressing his hands against Morty's head and simulating a squeeze, to Morty's horror. "Or, you know, I could go take a shit. Th-There's like a one in six billion chance that I could accidentally shit gold. Your call," he ended smugly.

GLaDOS suddenly began to rise up majestically again as her hydraulics hissed like snakes. A low rumble echoed around the room and a section of panels to the right of the cell began to move and rise up too, revealing a large automatic door like the one Rick and Morty first encountered. This one was fully functional. The imprisoned duo looked on at the large door as it _whooshed_ open revealing a strange blue force field in the door way, and beyond that a darkened corridor. "This is a testing facility, Rick and Morty. And I'm _very_ good at testing. It's my hobby, as well as my job. So if you want to leave my facility…" She announced, peering down at them from above, her eye pulsated in a slow and soothing orange frequency, brighter than ever before. Her two appendages returned with two orange jumpsuits, each with the Aperture Science logo adorning the back, and bright electronic name tags fused on to the front, bearing their names in black flickering text. Surprisingly, both of them were perfectly tailored for an adult male human and a male human child. She lowered them down to the glass panel in front of her prisoners, watching their reactions as they looked back up at her. "You. Will. Test."


	7. Chapter 7: Defiance

GLaDOS began to swing the jumpsuits gently to and fro in the air, taunting the two prisoners. To Morty, they conveyed the image of a prison uniform like what he'd seen on TV many times before, and seemed very fitting for their current predicament. Rick was just impressed at how thought-out the whole scenario was. As the suits were lowered and became more stationary, the duo moved closer to the glass to inspect the suits further, and caught their own reflections, perfectly positioned to make it look like they were already wearing them. Neither Rick nor Morty liked the look of them. Rick's eyes darted between the suits, GLaDOS, and the newly opened door way containing the strange blue force field, before folding his arms and huffing.

"Pffft! No dice," exclaimed Rick as his eyebrows lowered in disinterest, prompting GLaDOS to lower herself down to Rick's level, like a mother about to speak to a stubborn child.

"Excuse me? My audio sensors may have been malfunctioning a little. It sounded like you interpreted that as a request, _Rick._ Allow me to clarify. You _WILL_ test. That was actually an instruction." She explained, playfully dangling the suit in front of Rick like a piece of yarn in front of a cat. Morty flinched as GLaDOS's eye became level with them, and flitted his gaze between her and Rick, periodically. Rick stood motionless and unamused by her command and instead stared straight through the swaying suit and directly at GLaDOS.

"Don't care, not doing it." Argued Rick, as he swiftly gazed at the chamber's new entrance and began inspecting it from the right side of the cell. GLaDOS' eye followed him across the cell, ignoring Morty completely and moving the arm that was holding his suit back into his face.

"I admire your tenacity Rick, but do you really want me to use force? The punishment will go ahead as planned. The testing will commence." She announced. Her arms then returned to her body before rising above the glass cell, dangling the suits above them. A small hatch briefly opened on the glass cell roof and closed just as quickly as GLaDOS dropped the suits into the cell for her captives. Morty picked up his suit and gave it a once over, turning to Rick with an inquisitive look on his face.

"Rick! Will you stop making the giant robot angry!? Y-y-you're gonna get us killed!" Morty whined.

"You should listen to Morty, Rick."

"Blow me!" He replied, walking over to his creased orange jump suit and picking it up. He scrunched it up and threw it into the nearby toilet like a make-shift basketball, scoring an imaginary three-pointer, and yelling "Kobe!" as he did so. GLaDOS's eye lit up in fury and her arms sharply returned to her body. Rick then turned to face her with yet another disinterested look. Morty's eyes shot open and his mouth fell agape as he watched Rick's jump suit slowly sink into the pristine porcelain bowl.

"What the hell Rick!?" Both Morty and GLaDOS uttered at the same time. GLaDOS's voice sounded briefly emotional, as though she momentarily malfunctioned, before reverting back to her cold, emotionless state. She made a metallic sound to simulate clearing a throat before addressing his rebellion.

"Rick, my admiration for your rebellious nature will only go so far, and my patience is wearing quite thin. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but your only means of escape appears to be in my possession. Your gizmos and gadgets are all confiscated, and your only ally is your strange glowing pre-pubescent sidekick. I said I would not kill you unless you provoked me, but I guess we can tick that box now, can't we? So for the last time, I must ask, why do you continue to refuse my simple demand?" She questioned. Rick sighed and rubbed his eyes in frustration before uttering his response in annoyance.

"Because," he yelled in response, "This is beneath me! I'm the smartest person in the universe, and that's not me being egotistical that's stone-cold fact. Having me solve your _tests_ would be like trying to teach quantum mechanics to a toaster. Time consuming and a pain in the ass for everyone involved, with no worthwhile result at the end. Subjecting me to your little puzzle solving experience would probably fry your circuits with how easily I could navigate them, and I'd be bored shitless telling you everything that's wrong with them, and how to improve them. Whatever plan you have to kill me is probably wayyyy more enticing than being your weird science slave. So do your worst, bitch." Rick folded his arms again in defiance but not before flipping off GLaDOS at the end of his speech. Morty stood frozen in shock, trying to contemplate why Rick just signed their own death warrant, and couldn't even find any words to utter, only mouthing the words _why_ and _what_ over and over without any sound escaping his terrified lips. Instead he just grasped at his face and held his head anxiously, in case the stress from the current predicament made it explode. Rick and GLaDOS began staring each other down intensely, gradually inching closer and closer towards the glass that separated them, until GLaDOS finally came to a conclusion and her lid half-covered her eye again in acceptance.

"Fine," she uttered, "you don't have to test." She backed away from the glass and readied an appendage at the top of the cage. Morty and Rick both shared the same expression after hearing her verdict. Their mouths had drooped in confusion, perplexed at the idea of GLaDOS just suddenly giving up her desire to kill them. She manoeuvred the tube-like arm into the cell and extracted the jumpsuit from the toilet bowl, and with another arm, squeezing and rinsing the liquid all over her stunned captives, before carrying the damp suit out.

"Wait," Rick questioned. "You serious? And you're not gonna kill me?" Rick questioned.

"No, Rick, I'm not going to kill you," she answered, "because you are right." After hearing this, Rick quickly muttered "duh" under his breath and became silent once more, before he could antagonise his warden even further.

"Don't get me wrong," she continued, "It's difficult for me to admit when I'm wrong, because most of the time, well, approximately 96% of the time, I am right. But what you said makes sense. I don't need someone as smart as you to fulfil my testing requirements for precisely the reasons you said. And perhaps, maybe a few others, but they're not as important." Her arms lifted the damp and wrinkled suit closer to her, and another arm descended with a large funnel at the end, acting as a heat dispenser to dry the suit, looking similar to a giant hairdryer. Morty slid over to Rick, happy at the news that they weren't going to die.

"Way to go Rick, your bluff worked!" He whispered gleefully. Rick looked down at Morty with an annoyed frown, the type of look he gives when Morty's usual level of stupidity takes its toll.

"I wasn't bluffing Morty, y-y-you little moron. I meant what I said. I'd rather suck neurotoxin through a-a-a giant robotic dick, than be her fucking rat chasing cheese Morty!" Rick yelled back at him, all the while flailing his arms around again, and for a brief moment, simulating grabbing an invisible dick, which made Morty noticeably uncomfortable. His mood soon changed again to anger, realising that Rick basically just gave up and waited for both of them to be killed.

"What the heck Rick! Y-y-you were just gonna let the both of us die!?" He yelled in disgust. Rick's face had turned back to uninterested, and in the direction of the suit getting dried, something which was far more fascinating to him than yet another disagreement with Morty.

"Nope," he replied, "just me, bro." Morty's face drooped again in response, before questioning Rick's motives once again.

"Wait…..what?" He asked quietly, before his attention turned back to GLaDOS who was about to speak again. Her dried jumpsuit had been lifted back up to the ceiling and she turned her attention back to the cell.

"The last test subject I had working under me—sorry, FOR me, I should say, was uncharacteristically smart. I hate to admit it, but I think I brought out the best in her. I'd probably say that she made me proud, if she didn't already fill me more rage than a bull with extreme Erythropsia." Rick chuckled to himself, "but we don't like to talk about her. And I'm sure she doesn't like to talk about me. Or anything in fact. But I digress. I've tried testing with smart people, and it didn't work out." Rick's position stayed unmoved, looking up at GLaDOS and smirking to himself from the bull joke, but his eyes quickly darted to Morty, unbeknownst to the small sidekick. "No, what I need is someone dumb," she continued in a sinister tone, turning to look down at Morty specifically, which put him on edge. Suddenly he noticed Rick's eyes were on him, equally as sinister and GLaDOS began to elegantly glide over to Morty's position, while still peering and towering over him menacingly. Her eye suddenly seemed brighter to Morty, as he noticed to room was getting gradually dimmer and dimmer, just enough for his skin to start glowing ever so slightly.

"R-R-Rick?" He uttered silently, trembling in place and watching as GLaDOS grew closer and closer, to the point where he could hear the faint hum of her metallic body hovering in the darkened room around him. Rick was still as GLaDOS came to a stop.

"Someone stupid," she continued, "and soft…and _impressionable."_ Morty's eyes widened as he watched her hover right on top of him with an almost evil squint aimed in his direction. "Preferably, someone who wears yellow, and has glowing skin." He gulped and began tugging at Rick's jacket, all the while fixed on GLaDOS's eye. Suddenly her eye jolted open fully again, the lights shot back to their original brightness, and GLaDOS had snapped back to her original position. "Basically you Morty," she said in her normal voice. Rick's eyes had shot back to GLaDOS as though none of that had happened, and Morty stood petrified, staring aimlessly in front of him almost as if he was in a trance of terror.

* * *

"Huh," Rick said, "those last two criteria were oddly specific. Tough luck, huh, Morty?" he said, patting Morty on the back which knocked him out of his trance. Rick then picked up the Morty-sized jumpsuit and tossed it onto his grandson's head, while he went to inspect the new entrance once more, almost ignoring Morty in case he decided to whine even more. Morty decided to do just that, and started by throwing the jumpsuit on the floor, and stomping over to Rick.

"C'mon Rick, stop messing around. Y-y-you're not really gonna make me, y'know, test are you? You got a plan, right?" He said, trying to draw Rick's attention, all the while averting his gaze from GLaDOS. Rick was focusing completely on the blue force field and tried to block out Morty whilst he concentrated.

"Had a plan Morty," he replied, "Didn't work. Now it's your turn."

"My turn!?"

"Yes _Morty_ , your turn. Th-These adventures are a two way street, you know. I can't save your ass from deadly tests all the time. You gotta put a little effort in too." Replied Rick

"Two way str—deadly tests!?" Morty yelled. GLaDOS, amused by their bickering, decided to involve herself once more by interrupting Morty.

"Now that we're all in agreement, Morty, would you please adorn your Aperture Science Testing Jumpsuit, so that we may—"

"Not now Gladys!" interrupted Morty, holding up his index finger to GLaDOS, all the while still focused on Rick, to simulate a "one second" gesture, to the surprise of both of them. GLaDOS's eye half-closed again in annoyance, after hearing more disrespect from her prisoners, and wondering how they could've possibly got her name wrong again. "What do you mean deadly tests, Rick!?" Rick spun around in frustration, ready to explain what was obvious to him, to the clearly oblivious Morty, while GLaDOS patiently waited for Morty's tantrum to cease.

"Yes Morty! These _tests_ she wants you to be a part of are obviously going to be highly dangerous. She's a killer robot. Clearly these tests are meant to entertain her in some way, so what's more entertaining than watching moron's get themselves killed." He looked up at GLaDOS for validation, "Am I right?"

"Well, the tests themselves still record valuable data when solved correctly, but the data from the… _failures_ is just as valuable too," she answered. Her eye quickly darted left to right and she inched herself closer to the cell as though she had a secret to share. "And yes, the failures are kind of funny too," she chuckled, before leaving them alone for a moment while she tinkered with the panels nearer to the new doorway. Morty's eyes widened again in fear after hearing the enjoyment of GLaDOS's voice, and proceeded to clamp his hands around Rick's jacket to pull him down to his level.

"Rick, don't make me do it! I don't want to die! I'm terrible at tests, you know that! I-I-I can't even pass a spelling test! Who the hell spells _champagne_ with a _G_ anyway!? I'm freaking out here Rick!" screamed Morty, physically shaking in terror, with Rick's jacket taking the brunt force. Rick quickly batted Morty's clawing hands out of the way and placed his hands on his shoulders, still face to face, in an attempt to soothe Morty's outburst.

"Morty! MORTY! Just relax okay; you're not going to die. We-we've faced some pretty ugly shit in the past Morty, and we always come out on top. We're survivors Morty, you especially." Rick's face became stern and confident, as he wiped Morty's tears away, determined to fill his grandson with the same confidence. Morty's face relaxed and he began to calm down with each word that came from Rick. "Listen, grandpa's been doing this for a long time, so I'm used to this sort of thing. It's my life now, but you. You don't give yourself e-e-enough credit, Morty. I dragged you into these adventures all that time ago, and despite the danger we've faced, y-you've still managed to pull through it all. You've kept your cool at time, a-and you've stepped up to the challenges. It took me years to be able to handle some of the shit you have. You're smart Morty." Morty smiled after hearing this, and so did Rick. "Maybe not book smart or _school_ smart" he continued, putting up air quotes for _school_ , which let out a small chuckle from Morty, "but you're smart where it counts." Morty began sniffling and wiped away his own tears, as he watched Rick stand up to retrieve the jumpsuit Morty had dropped.

"R-r-really Rick? Y-y-you really mean that?" Rick picked up the suit and went back to his position.

"Every word, Morty" he assured, handing Morty the jumpsuit gently and smiling at him with beaming confidence. "Now you get out there, and you show this wannabe V.I.K.I that you don't just fuck with Rick Sanchez, but you also don't fuck with Morty Smith." The last part resonated within Morty and brought out a sudden burst of courage within him, as he clutched the jumpsuit in hand and was ready to put it on.

"Okay Rick!" he said confidently, "I'll do my best." He started to put on the perfectly tailored jumpsuit, bottom half first, then struggling with the top half, until eventually he was fully dressed. He noticed two large items that had been placed inside the pockets in the pants and took them out to inspect. They were a pair of odd looking shoes, the same size as Morty's, with _Prototype Long Fall Sneakers_ stamped on the sides. He tossed them to the floor and sat down to remove his own shoes, a slight smile and look of determination growing on his face as he did so. Rick made a quick glance in GLaDOS's direction to make sure she was still busy, and quickly put the make-shift device he made earlier into one of Morty's new shoes, while Morty was busy removing his old pair and pumping himself up, gleefully.

"Huh, these feel kind of weird," said Morty as he tried out his new shoes by walking and bouncing around the cell. GLaDOS appeared back at the cell almost instantaneously which cast a large shadow on the pair.

"They will take some adjusting to," she bellowed. "The _Prototype Long Fall Sneakers_ should discourage any adverse falling damage that may occur when testing." Suddenly, the glass panels of the cell decided to shake and descend into the floor, and the roof straightened up vertically to join them. "Now that you're ready, and you've had your little _moment_ , we can begin," she continued sarcastically. Rick and Morty both waited until the panels had disappeared before stretching their legs outside of their prison. "Morty, please walk over to that device and pick it up" she said, pointing herself at a small stand which stood on a panel she had lifted up near the new entrance. On the stand, lay a strange claw-like gun with a glass tube in the middle, that glowed blue and orange periodically. Morty turned to Rick nervously and saw that Rick was signalling thumbs up before folding his arms again and smiling, prompting Morty to smile back and walk towards the device carefully. "Rick?" Said GLaDOS, "before you get any ideas, just know that you are now a sort of hostage. Any attempt at escape, defiance towards me, or general annoyance, will result in Morty getting a _shocking_ surprise."

"Noted," he replied. GLaDOS then manoeuvred over to Morty who had now picked up the gun and had fitted his right arm snugly in the gap leading to the trigger.

"Now then Morty," she started, "This is the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. The device itself uses an infinitely generating, quantum tunnelling energy source, to fire two different Inter-dimensional gateways, or _Portals_ , which connect to each other. You will need to use this device, as well as your _wits_ , when solving the majority of my tests. Please do not break it, or lose it, or become romantically attached to it. The last thing we need is a broken heart." Morty's face had drooped in confusion as he inspected the gun carefully; trying to attribute certain aspects of it to other guns he had seen in video games and in his adventures and also trying to determine what was so sexy about it. He noticed that the glass tube more than likely contained a strange type of ammunition or substance, and that the funnel that the claws surrounded was clearly where the portals were fired from. He slowly lifted the device to inspect the funnel before GLaDOS interrupted him. "A few more rules Morty. Do not touch the operational end of _the device_. Do not look directly at the operational end of _the device_." All of a sudden, Rick piped up from afar.

"Probably best that you don't submerge the device in liquid either, Morty."

"Quiet Rick," replied GLaDOS in disinterest, "any questions, Morty?"

"Feels kind of heavy," he replied.

"That is not a question, so I guess we're good to go then," she said gleefully, moving a slanted panel to urge Morty closer to the entrance and slowly pushing him through the blue force field with it. "The Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill you have just _walked_ through is used to vaporize any and all unauthorised Aperture Science equipment that is passed through it. They will appear at the end of each test, to prevent you from taking any items to the next test with you, and also, to fizzle away any items you may have developed a bond with, right before your eyes." Morty stopped and stared at the force field he had passed through in curiosity, but then suddenly felt a brief sharp aching in his gums.

"Ow! Geeeeeez, I think I can taste blood. My teeth feel funny" he squealed, clutching at his cheek.

"I wouldn't worry about it Morty!" Yelled Rick as he started to walk closer to the entrance to see Morty off, "I'd be more worried about your ear canals melting!"

"Quiet Rick," GLaDOS replied again. Luckily Morty couldn't hear either of them as he was too busy rubbing his ear after experiencing a very similar aching in his ear canal. "Now please make your way into the nearby elevator, Morty. Since you have experience with Portals, we can skip the introduction tests and get right to the _good stuff_ , _"_ she continued. After the pain had subsided, Morty looked down the short dark corridor in front of him, which led to an elevator bathed in light. The elevator looked just like the cylinder he encountered when he was searching for the cube, bringing up feelings of unease. He took a big gulp, and proceeded to walk the short distance, lighting up the corridor with his glow as he walked. As the elevator door gently slid open, Morty took a deep breath and stepped inside, noticing that the Aperture logo above his head also lit up and began to flicker. Morty looked down at the entrance he had just come from and saw Rick stood next to a stooped down GLaDOS, his arms still folded and that confident smile still on his face. "I will instruct you further when you reach the test chamber" said GLaDOS coldly. Rick signalled the OK sign and winked at Morty, making him feel at ease once more.

"Good luck, Morty!" he yelled, waving a single arm as the elevator closed and descended down towards his first test. His face then quickly changed from the confident smirk, to his usual disinterest. "Alright," he started, "If we're gonna watch these tests then I'm gonna need a chair or something. We can't all be plugged in, you know." GLaDOS let out a small chuckle and swapped a floor panel with one that had a stool on it then turned to face an array of different sized monitors that had descended from the ceiling, all displaying Morty as he entered his first chamber. Rick sat down casually with one leg on his lap, as GLaDOS inched closer to Rick while still observing the test in progress.

"Did you _really_ mean what you said to Morty?" she asked him, almost in disbelief. Rick went for his flask again then rolled his eyes in frustration, until he noticed one of GLaDOS's arms had returned from the ceiling carrying his flask and dangling it within reach. He looked at GLaDOS briefly, who had just turned away back to the monitors, with a smile of almost admiration, before grabbing his flask and taking a much needed drink.

"Nope, but the little moron would've just kept on crying if I didn't say something. Trust me, I know," he belched. The two of them both let out a slight chuckle, which broke out into brief laughter, as they watched Morty through the monitors, getting to grips with the Portal Gun, as he waited for GLaDOS's instructions.


	8. Chapter 8: The Testing Begins

After Morty had stepped into the new, brightly lit test chamber, he was instantly greeted with a long glowing panel on the wall next to the entrance. He spotted a large "01" highlighted in black letters, and strange black symbols displaying possible threats in the test chamber, as well as general information to help solve the test. He also noticed familiar looking security cameras dotted around the walls, fully functioning and watching him. Morty gulped anxiously as he peered at the one above the light panel and then manoeuvred over to inspect it, touching the symbols in the hopes that it was some sort of informative touch screen, like the museums he'd been to on school field trips. To his surprise, the moment he touched the first symbol of a portal gun shooting a portal onto a flat surface, the entire screen changed to the same icon but enlarged, with a brief description to explain the symbol underneath it in the same black text as the numbers.

"….White wall and floor panels are conductors for portals issued by the Handheld Portal Device. Notice that the majority of the test chamber is comprised of these panels, and are necessary when completing these tests," Morty spoke allowed, before the text disappeared and the icon shrank back to its original position on the previous screen. Morty then looked at the gun he was holding and carefully aimed it at the nearest blank wall panel closest to him. He could feel two distinct triggers inside the device and decided to pull the leftmost trigger first. The moment he pulled the trigger, the glass tube began to glow a bright blue colour and a strange projectile of the same hue was launched out of the furthest end of the device. It happened faster than the blink of an eye and was quickly followed by a small, other-worldly noise emanating from the gun similar to a thud and a rattle. On the panel he aimed at, Morty noticed a strange and large opaque oval of the same blue. He then did the same thing but with the other trigger, this time turning the tube and pellet bright orange. However, the pellet bounced off of the blue oval and exploded silently into bits of gelatinous orange blobs which dissipated quicker than they could touch the ground. Morty had realised that he could not fire a portal through a portal, so instead did the same thing but right next to the blue oval on another clear wall. As soon as the orange pellet made contact with the wall, an orange oval-shaped ring appeared, this time reflecting the wall behind him where the now blue ring was facing. He could see himself in the two portals, like looking into two rounded mirrors with a gap in the middle. He experimented with them by placing his right hand in the orange portal to the left, which poked it out of the blue portal, then shaking it with his left hand. Morty chuckled to himself as he stood shaking his own hand, before looking around the room to see what other fun things he could do with the portals to learn how they work.

The security cameras began to move and focus on Morty, watching him as he placed the portals on random panels, and experimenting with how they worked, using them to look at himself from up above, or trying to chase himself through an endless tunnel. He refrained from trying to change portal locations while part of his body was already half way through, in case they were cut clean off with the swift change in location just like the many sci-fi movies he'd seen, or the many adventures he'd been a part of. His mind was cast back to the poor member of the Galactic Militia that Rick's portal cut in half, when they were rescuing Fart from his imprisonment, and Morty suddenly became cautious when going through a portal he created. Instead, he tried another experiment. He aimed at the ceiling and fired a portal directly above him, then fired the other directly below it, peering through the one on the floor to see the back of his head down below multiple times, in front of a never-ending tunnel. Remembering he was wearing the Long Fall Sneakers, Morty prepared to jump into his never-ending tunnel, confident his new shoes would protect him in case it backfired. "Woohoooo!" He yelled as he hopped into the bottom portal, then instantly popping out of the one on the ceiling, then back into the one on the floor, over and over again, picking up speed as he went.

Eventually his vision became blurred and nauseating as the speed became too great, and he lost track of where he was. His screams of enjoyment quickly became his usual shrieks of fear, as he wondered how he was going to get out of the tunnel he created, since he couldn't position himself out of it and he couldn't focus on anything as he dropped faster and faster. He began to flail his legs around erratically, eventually clipping the edge of the portal with his foot, spinning him out of control while still falling. He briefly came into contact with the sides of the two portals, either his arm or head or leg as he fell, enough to knock him around, but not enough to knock him out of his tunnel. His shrieks were broken up by the occasional utterance of pain has he bounced and spun off of the portals like a pinball, never once exiting the path, but gradually losing speed with each bump. Eventually Morty could just about make out one of the walls as he fell, and immediately pulled one of the triggers as he aimed, changing the path from a never-ending tunnel, to a catapult. The ceiling portal had changed just as he came through it, and instead changed to a high wall panel aimed straight at the security camera that was just above the entrance and the information panel. Morty only noticed his path when it was too late, as he came plummeting towards the bottom portal and was sent hurtling through the air by the other, eventually crashing straight into the camera above the light panel, his head cracking the lens and falling flat on his back underneath it. It was at that moment that Morty understood the rules of forward momentum, and also that in order for his shoes to work; he needed to land on his feet.

Morty picked up his bruised and aching body, limped back over to panel to inspect the other symbols, and began to tap on the symbols to learn about each one before even attempting to solve the test. His eyes flitted back and forth between each small paragraph that popped up, and his eyes began to burn gradually from staring at the bright light of the panel for too long. He began to murmur to himself snippets of the paragraphs that he read. "…Press switch to dispense Weighted Storage Cube…only the exact weight of the cube on the Super Button will open the door…beware of hazardous goo contained within the test chamber…only candidates with a perfect score on the Aperture Science Testing Score Sheet will receive cake..." He whispered aloud, until his mouth drooped at the last symbol and he tapped on it again to double check what he had just read. "Cake?" He questioned to himself, before turning around to finally attempt to solve his first test. In the distance he could see a large cylindrical container at the far end of the chamber, near a closed door. Morty squinted and focused on what was trapped in the container and noticed that it was a familiar looking cube, which made every hair on his body stand on end and he started to develop goose bumps. He cautiously moved closer into the chamber and noticed that it wasn't the dreaded _Companion_ Cube he saw earlier, as instead of the heart motif branded on the sides, it was the Aperture logo instead. Remembering what he had just read and quickly glancing at one of the Test Chamber symbols, he concluded that inside the container must've been the Weighted Storage Cube instead, which he needed in order to complete the test. His attention suddenly shifted closer to himself, to a pedestal with a red button on it, which was directly next to an even larger red button on the floor, where the cube was supposed to be placed on. His eyes followed strange dotted blue markings that ran across the floor and the walls that linked the pedestal to the Cube, and the button to the exit door. Cogs began to turn in Morty's head, and everything began to fall into place. "I get it," he announced loudly, "the little button drops the cube, and the cube keeps the big button pressed, which opens the door." Morty proudly smiled to himself, then his mouth drooped again as he looked straight ahead at the exit door, and noticed that there was large gap in the middle of the chamber. The camera attempted to focus, but twitched and became limp instead, as Morty crept closer to the gap and noticed that it was in fact a deep moat, filled with strange brown-green ooze that bubbled and hissed and steamed a pungent smell. Morty then remembered one of the symbols that warned him of hazardous goo, and decided to test just how hazardous it was. He knelt down and took off one of his shoes and dropped it into the liquid, only realising after he had that he might have needed it to stop himself from breaking his legs in future tests, but it was too late. As the shoe collided with the pool of ooze, the hissing became greater in volume and more steam rose up, as the shoe began to melt like a candle, becoming a thin white and grey stain swirling around in the discoloured lake. Morty's face turned white, and he backed away quickly from the gap, in case he accidentally fell in and became a Morty coloured film on top of the ooze.

* * *

Suddenly the damaged security camera fizzed and sparked, the light on top of it had already diminished, and they all lowered and pointed directly at the floor. This prompted an annoying beeping as the little lights on top of each one began to flash, almost like a warning signal. Morty looked at it in surprise and wondered if it was his head that caused it to break, before a familiar voice echoed through an intercom somewhere in the room.

"Don't be _alarmed_ Morty," GLaDOS announced, as the alarm on the camera started to die down, "I was _just_ about to talk you through the test, before the security camera sent a distress signal. I shall return to explain the test, once I fix the problem. Take this time to _take a breather_ before the testing continues," she continued, with a slight chuckle in her voice that she was clearly trying to hide. Morty thought he could also hear Rick's laugh quietly coming through the intercom, but decided it must've been his imagination. Not long after the distress signal stopped, Morty noticed one of the wall panels began to move, spinning around to reveal a monitor with a tiny camera on it, which crackled with static before Rick's face appeared on it.

"Morty!" He yelled, trying to get the monitor to focus on his face through the static. "Over here Morty! Come on, move your ass!" He belched.

"R-Rick!? what th—H-H-How did you-!?"

"I managed to hack one of the monitors that she's watching you on Morty! She's gone into a temporary sleep mode while she fixes the camera issue internally. W-w-we haven't got much time!"

"Oh geez! W-W-What do you need me to do Rick!?" Morty stuttered, glancing at the malfunctioning cameras then back at the monitor.

"You're in a prime position Morty!" He replied, "i-i-if you complete a few tests and progress through the chambers, one where there are f-fewer cameras, and destroy one or two so she can't spy on you, you can make your way outside the chamber a-and inside the inner workings of the facility. When she goes to fix the camera, I'll try to hack a panel from here and loosen it for you, and change the feed to static, and you can make your way through and take her down from the inside." He belched enthusiastically. Morty grinned in excitement and joyfully bounced up and down.

"Alright Rick! Good plan!" Morty whispered, "but, h-h-how am I going to, y'know, take her down?" Rick had a sure smile as the monitor feed moved back and forth, lessening the static.

"Easy! I hid a device in your shoe Mortyyy!" He yelled happily, "if you place it on her core mainframe, it should fry her system. It might only stun her, but it should give us enough time to get my portal gun back and get the h-heck out of here." Morty's eyes widened and his mouth drooped again as he looked down at his feet.

"My….Sh-shoes?" He asked quietly.

"That's right Morty, pretty sneaky of me! The ol' sleight of hand. The panels are all controlled by her, so there should be something behind them like some wires or rails or pipes you can follow on the other side of them that can lead you straight to her—"

"W-w-w-w-which shoe?" Morty interrupted. Rick scowled as he saw Morty staring at his feet and hacked the monitor to gently tilt towards Morty's feet as well.

"The right one…why?" Rick asked suspiciously, as the monitor had reached the desired angle, revealing Morty's feet. Morty gulped, as the toes of his bare right foot wiggled, as if to feel for a shoe that was now swirling around in the acid-like lake along with the device. Morty raised his head up at the same time that the monitor raised up too, revealing Rick's disgruntled, disappointed face. "Morty, you idiot!" He shouted, causing static again, "You've shit all over my plan Morty! Now we're gonna have to go with Plan B!"

"What's plan B!?" Morty whined.

"Finish the tests and don't get killed," he replied, emotionless. "Oh! And don't piss her off either." Morty's face drooped once more as the monitor returned to static and the panel turned around again. The cameras suddenly sprang back to life and GLaDOS's voice echoed in the room once more.

"There, all fixed. Try not to break it again," she started. "Now, from what you said earlier, you seem to know how to solve this first test anyway. So I'll just observe for now," she said, as the cameras focused on him again. Morty gulped and walked over to the pedestal, ready to start the test. "Oh wait," GLaDOS piped up again. "You seem to have _misplaced_ a Long Fall Sneaker. How did that happen?" She asked suspiciously while zooming the camera lenses in on Morty's feet. A wall panel turned around nearby, revealing a small tube which spat a replacement shoe at Morty's face at high velocity, before turning back around. "There you go. _DON'T_ lose another," she bellowed. Morty rubbed his face angrily and put the new shoe on, then stood back in position at the pedestal once more. He placed his hand over the shining red button, and slammed his hand down on top of it, wincing at the same time as he expected something bad to happen. Instead the obvious happened, as the cube dropped out of the container on the other end of the gap. Realising what had to be done; Morty carefully aimed his gun again, and fired two more portals, one across the gap, and the other right next to him on the wall nearby, allowing him to quickly cross the goo completely unharmed. As he walked up to the cube, he pondered how he was going to carry it, since the last one he handled was so heavy, but as he got nearer, the claws of his gun twitched and the ends began to shine a bright white light. Not only that, but a small button he hadn't noticed before also began to glow on the underside of the device, which when pressed, acted as strange gravity gun, lifting the cube up as though it was weightless.

"Cool," announced Morty, as he joyfully went back through the portal with his cube and placed it onto the big red button on the floor, immediately opening the door on the other end. "It's just like a solving a puzzle in a video game," he uttered, making his final moves of the test and advancing through the door via his portals again, but gingerly passing through another Emancipation Grill. As the door closed behind him, another elevator was called down to greet him, and GLaDOS's voice came through again.

"Well done Morty," she said, "you've now successfully navigated the first infant-level test chamber, and in record time I might add…" Morty's face filled with glee as he entered the elevator, ready for the next test, "…for slowest completion to date," she continued, prompting Morty's face to droop disappointedly in response, and prompting Rick to laugh hysterically, which even Morty could hear. "But don't worry, I'm sure you'll pick up the pace eventually. We've only got a hundred or so more tests to complete. Give or take. So you'll have plenty of time to improve." The elevator doors closed and the capsule _whooshed_ down to the next test chamber, as Morty gulped and noticed an electronic pad lighting up next to him. It had hundreds of little boxes all in columns, with the first one containing a glowing green tick, and a familiar looking symbol of a cake at the very bottom.

Elsewhere in GLaDOS's chamber, she and Rick were watching the tests. A small microphone had protruded from one of the monitors, aimed at where GLaDOS's mouth would be if she had one. "This next test should adjust you to that forward momentum you experienced earlier. _Break a leg_." She spoke, turning her attention briefly to Rick who had adopted a sour expression after remembering that his plan had failed. She blinked slowly and silently ordered the microphone to return to the monitor, which was now showing a screaming Morty in the next test chamber, flying through the air after stepping on an Ariel Faith Plate. Her hydraulics hissed as she inched closer to Rick playfully, who ignored her presence and instead sat and watched Morty, who was standing on a platform in the middle of a goo chasm firing portals at grey panels and realising they didn't conduct the portal fluid. GLaDOS stared at the same thing, and gradually started leaning into Rick as though she was about to whisper. "He melted the shoe with your device in, didn't he?" She asked, still staring at the screen. Rick, instead of being shocked that she knew about his plan again, just sighed and rubbed his eyes with one hand.

"Even when he doesn't know the plan, the idiot manages to mess it up." Rick said, dropping his head over the back of his chair in frustration, as GLaDOS let out a slight chuckle after seeing Morty sit down and rest on another Ariel Faith Plate, which flung him further and faster than before. "Well," he continued, perking up slightly, "now we get to watch him make an ass of himself. This should be good." Rick took a drink from his flask as GLaDOS zoomed in on Morty limping over to the exit of his latest test and scowling at the nearest camera with a bruised and angry face.


	9. Chapter 9: The Watchers

Hours had passed since Morty's first test chamber had been completed, and GLaDOS had gradually made her makeshift control centre more advanced, and even more comfortable for Rick. While they watched Morty, Rick was never shy about demanding better furnishings or non-essentials to keep himself amused or at the very least content, much to GLaDOS's annoyance, as though his status as prisoner was meaningless to him. Nevertheless she often complied with his often child-like requests, such as replacing his seat with a much more comfortable office chair taken from one of the few offices that GLaDOS had kept pristine, or rather the few that remained untouched after her previously mentioned little "episode". Most of time, GLaDOS only did so because she was bored of her threats having next to no lasting effect, and would only go along with Rick's demands so that he'd stop whining or spouting constant disrespect. Since having his flask returned, Rick also managed to convince GLaDOS to provide further refreshments and nourishments for him from one of the many cafeterias, which also helped to stop his incessant nagging. She found it was much harder for Rick to dish out commands when he was nearly choking on handfuls of processed snack foods. Among other things, he often wanted the room itself to be changed, as if he was pushing the boundaries of how far GLaDOS was willing to indulge him. To his surprise, it was one of the few demands that she was actually on board with, even if it was only partially. She had made the room itself much smaller by moving the walls closer together and had raised a circular desk up to the monitors, with the side closest to her housing strange electronic screens. The screens displayed intricate statistics and room controls that only she could manipulate, clearly linked to whatever test chamber Morty was in, as well as other parts of the facility that she saw fit to interact with.

Despite her threats to shock Morty if Rick annoyed her or plotted some kind of defiant plan, it didn't stop Rick being a huge pain in her robotic ass. Even she had had enough of his irritating behaviour eventually, as well as his attempts to hack the terminals when her back was turned, which resulted in Morty being shocked in abundance during test number 18. Even though Morty was in a great deal of pain as a result, the many mistakes he made because of it prompted nothing but laughter from the two spectators, making GLaDOS's threats seem meaningless. The more the two spectators enjoyed Morty's blunders, the more they began to relax in each other's presence, to the point where Rick was even given the chance to shock Morty himself on occasion, during an integral part of test number 27. Rick had laughed so hard that he fell off of his new chair and broke it, which was promptly replaced with an even better, reclining variation. At times, GLaDOS even found Rick's few attempts at escape vaguely amusing and somewhat endearing, which is why she never punished him too hard whenever he tried to do so. Likewise, Rick had eventually adjusted to his hostage position and had even begun to respect her many contingencies to his escape plans. The pair had formed a slight bond over their mutual admiration for the other's intellect and cunning, as well as their enjoyment in tormenting Morty and watching him make an ass of himself.

"Oh come on, Morty!" Rick yelled with a mouth full of Doritos, "the turrets can still see you even through the portal, idiot!" Rick began flailing his arms at the now upgraded HD monitors, which showed Morty ducking for cover behind a Hard Light Bridge that stretched across the test chamber, upright instead of flat, and blocking the onslaught of turret-fire.

"Well," GLaDOS replied, "at least he's finally realised that the Hard Light Bridges block incoming projectiles."

"Yeah, _finally_ " Rick belched, "you'd think the first flesh wound would teach him that, but _nooooo_." Rick leaned over to open a mini-fridge that was resting next to his recliner, taking out for a strange can which bore the Aperture logo on it, and cracked it open to drink. After taking one sip, he proceeded to pour some of the contents of his flask into it, to spice it up. "By the way, I was half expecting those turrets to blow his arm straight off with a bunch of 5.56mm rounds or something. What do your little egg-bots use anyhow?" GLaDOS tapped one of the desk screens with an appendage, which accelerated the firing process of the turrets, prompting Morty to squeal and cower as if the Hard Light Bridge would suddenly shatter like glass.

"Self-cauterising miniature plasma pellets," she replied, "A little upgrade I came up with. The old rounds eventually lost their effectiveness. Test subjects were far less likely to complete tests if they were too busy _bleeding out_ , or holding in a kidney."

"Smart," said Rick, taking another sip. GLaDOS then tapped another screen which shifted some panels on the floor behind the Hard Light Bridge, raising different strange-looking turrets up from the ground. Each one was comprised of a short, swivelling robotic stem and a large spherical head with a rocket launcher attachment that followed the path of a blue laser sight, which happened to be pointing straight at the Hard Light Bridge in front of Morty. Morty yelled and ran straight across the room, trying to avoid the following laser, straight onto an Ariel Faith Plate, propelling him over the shooting turrets, away from their gaze, and heading straight into a nearby goo-filled gap. Luckily Morty quickly noticed one white panel among the grey on the walls of the mini chasm and fired a portal at it, linking the Hard Light Bridge and creating an upright bridge across the top, which he fell on crotch first. "Ouch," Rick said, reaching for another handful of Doritos.

"Indeed," GLaDOS tilted her head at the screen in wonderment, "I've never seen a test subject protect themselves from the goo _that_ way before. Most of them rotate the Hard Light projector with the button, making the bridge flat." She said, realising at the end of her explanation that she accidentally spoken into the microphone, revealing to Morty what he should have done. Morty, still reeling from his crotch-related injury, turned his head slowly in agony to see that next to the Ariel Faith Plate he just stepped on stood a pedestal with a large red button. Rick held his head in his hands and began tittering uncontrollably, as GLaDOS began to speak through the microphone again. "Ignore that _hint_ , Morty," she announced, "Just solve the test whichever way you think. There is no right or wrong way, except when there is." She then turned to Rick to make sure he was still breathing, "I will give you _this_ hint though; Hard Light Bridges can withstand much more than a few turrets and a Rocket Sentry or two." GLaDOS then quickly withdrew from the microphone in astonishment, as a barrage of annoyed screams and controversial insults bellowed out of the speakers from the monitors watching the test. She then tapped a small button which moved the microphone away and a small mute icon appeared on the corners of the screens. "I'll just leave him to his thoughts, I guess," she said, still astonished by what little she heard. After a few minutes the two spectators both watched a newly calmed-down Morty climb up on top of his make-shift tightrope, and walk to the other side of the gap, all the while grasping at his manhood in agony. He then noticed that next to the exit on the floor was a big button, which when pressed would open the exit door. Realising he had left the cube at the start of the test when he was busy hiding from turret fire, he fell to his knees and began yelling and cursing again. This prompted GLaDOS to roll her eye in annoyance and mute the screens once more, after she had _just_ finished muting him from the last time. She then brought back the microphone to speak with him again. "You know what? Why don't we take a small break Morty?" She said, and as quick as her sentence had finished, her head quickly shot out a few sparks and twitched uncontrollably for a brief moment before putting itself right again. "Hmmm," she said to herself, "I didn't think I'd ever say that." She then tapped a few screens, manipulating the room to drop a cube on the button allowing Morty to drag himself to the exit, all the while flipping off every camera he could see to which GLaDOS scowled at. "Your grandson is a very _special_ individual."

"Special is the right word," mumbled Rick with his mouth full, "are you gonna take your turn or what?"

"Hmm? Oh yes, I forgot." GLaDOS then turned her attention to a chess set in the middle of the desk. She moved a Rook forward, and her lower eyelid moved up in joy. "Check!" she exclaimed, then turning back to the screen to see Morty finally getting into the elevator. Rick squinted at the chess board, took a drink from his flask again, then slumped back into his chair and began rummaging through his inside pockets.

"Fuck this," Rick belched, "Chess is the last bastion of proving intelligence anyway. I've got a better game we can play." He continued, tossing away some of his knick-knacks that GLaDOS had returned to him, including a strange sparkling piece of blue chalk, a miniature glowing Vindicator beacon that was pulsating with light, and a large D-Battery that seemed to contain a black void with swirling pink mist in the middle. Eventually he grabbed a pack of regular playing cards with a logo that read _Dahl_ on the back of each card. "Ah, here they are. We might need a few more players but, Texas Hold 'Em! What do you say?" he said excitedly, holding up the pack to GLaDOS. She inspected the pack closely, squinted, and then turned to Rick's joy-filled face.

"…You're on"

* * *

The room Rick and GLaDOS inhabited had now changed again. The lights had been dimmed and the desk had been brushed to one side along with the monitors that still showed different angles of the room Morty was now resting in. It was a rather small chamber that had been converted into a make-shift break room for test subjects. The room itself had not been used for quite a number of years, and subsequently was left quite unkempt and dirty, aside from the few areas GLaDOS had managed to clean before Morty got there. The room itself contained a standard table and bench similar to a cafeteria table, with a half empty water cooler stowed away in one of the corners collecting cobwebs. More cobwebs had also congregated around some familiar looking turrets in sleep mode, along the wall opposite the exit door, which had the majority of the letters that spelled " _BREAK ROOM"_ still hanging on strong. The turrets were hooked up to a large countdown clock, counting down how long Morty had left until he must either return to the elevator, or stay and get riddled with bullets. As the clock was counting down, Morty was nervously finishing his cup of water, and reading one of the many Aperture Science pamphlets that were strewn across the desk. Each one crumpled, dusty and faded in colour, containing information about the history or possible future of the facility. He had just finished a brief paragraph from a pamphlet titled _Safety of the Cybernetic Mind_ , on Aperture's breakthrough in AI technology, and how it would revolutionise the way the facility is run day to day.

"….the integration of the Artificial Intelligence is not without its problems," he read aloud, "But our divisions believe that once the right candidate's human mind has adjusted to life inside the machine, the facility would work at full optimisation, with every inch of the facility capable of being manipulated by a single thought, effectively creating a safer environment for all." Morty rolled his eyes and skimmed the pamphlet across the table, as his mind was briefly cast back to when GLaDOS threatened him and Rick with neurotoxin. He snapped back to the present when a large a buzzer sounded to announce that he had 30 minutes left of his break.

Rick sat, as stoic as he could manage, at a large Aperture Science poker table, trying not to ogle the strange valuables before him: blueprints, memory chips, security footage disks and cake recipes among other things, all piled up as the current pot. On the inside, Rick was cursing and shouting, but on the outside his face was that of stone. The showdown was coming up, and a _Queen High_ was all he had, but he tried to remain as cool as possible.

He turned to his left to see the Party Escort Bot quickly glancing in his direction with a shaking, luminescent pink eye similar to that of GLaDOS. Upon detection, it let out a sharp robotic gasp and snapped back to its own hand, shaking its arms nervously under the pressure of the game.

 _Good_ , Rick thought to himself, _if I up the ante, Party Escort will fold like a lawn chair._

As Rick looked to his right, he saw a defective turret similar to one from before, but this time it had much more personality and little robotic mannequin arms attached, capable of basic functions like holding the cards in place, pushing bets into the middle, and holding a lit cigarette that Rick had supplied, despite the fact that neither of them smoke, as if it was just there to set the scene. _This thing has no concept of a poker face_ , Rick thought as he watched its erratic eye move around the table, blurting out little sentences about how great his cards are, and at the same time asking if anyone has got any threes. Rick's eyes glanced at his hand again. A _Two Pair_ was all he had, but he tried to remain as cool as possible.

His gaze then shifted next to the turret to face a discarded Personality Core with a single red eye and a black pupil. The pupil switched its shape between the different card suits and sometimes a dollar sign, as the core mumbled incomprehensible odds to itself and constantly changed its mind on what it wanted to do. It had the same arms as the turret which held its cards and every now and then, the eye twitched causing the colours of its iris and pupil to swap occasionally. _No wonder this Gambling Core was removed_ , Rick thought to himself again, before taking a drink from his flask and turning to his real challenge.

His eyes met with GLaDOS who had also adopted a poker face. She had previously stolen the pot with a _Four of a Kind_ , making Rick look like a fool with his previous _Two Pair_. But now it was his chance to take it back.

"C'mon ladies! Are we done braiding our hair, or are we gonna play some cards?" blurted out the Turret in a masculine, less robotic voice, making Party Escort jump in its seat and drop a few cards on the floor. Rick rolled his eyes as Party Escort finally composed himself again with all his cards in hand.

"R-Ready!" stuttered Party Escort, with a forced enthusiasm that sounded more like worry. Rick turned to the Turret and took a handful of vials from his pocket, each one containing a small amount of sparkling pink-coloured gel.

"Alright T, I'll call your Combustible Lemon blueprint…" Rick started, quickly glancing with relentless want, at a tattered and dusty blueprint in the pot that the Turret had bet, before composing himself.

"Intriguing, huh? I swiped that bad boy from the lost archives right from under the _old lady's_ nose. She had no idea where it went!" interrupted the Turret proudly, swaying happily to and fro in his seat. GLaDOS turned slowly to the turret, scowling at the audacity.

"You do realise that I am here, right? I can hear what you're saying," said GLaDOS angrily, prompting both Party Escort and the Gambling Core to twitch nervously.

"Relaaaaax sweetheart," said the Turret coolly, "old potato brain's not gonna find out. She's probably too busy trying to track down that bird that keeps scaring her half to death."

"Potato brain!?" GLaDOS said in an angrily rising tone.

"Yup, that bird has her more scared than a Mole in a Mallet shop." The Turret continued obliviously.

"You little...!" GLaDOS raised an appendage to strike before retracting as Rick cleared his throat loudly.

"And I raise..." Rick interrupted loudly, "with some pure Kalaxian Crystal essence." He said, sliding the vials across the table and in the middle with the rest of the pot. The rest of the players including GLaDOS perked up and became mesmerised by the new substance.

"Laxative whatsthatnow?" questioned the Turret.

"Kalaxian Crystals," explained Rick, "one of the most potent mind-expanding drugs in the multiverse. I-Its effect on consciousness is so strong it even works on non-organic beings. M-M-Meaning even electronic minds are susceptible. Check it out." Rick then took a small camera shaped object from the same pocket, and switched it on, revealing a little robot.

"What is my purpose?" It uttered as Rick dangled it by its head.

"You pass butter. Now stop squirming and take some of this." He popped open a vial and added a small droplet of the gel to the robot's camera lens, then dropped it on the table. The little robot picked itself up and dusted itself down before rubbing its lens like a tired child. Suddenly it stiffened up and its lens had a slight blue tinge behind it. The robot gripped its head and began pacing around quickly in a circle.

"Oh God! Why is my purpose in life so limited!? Or is it limited? What if I can pass more than butter? Can I pass margarine? What about other spreadables?" Rick sat back and sighed as though he had heard all of this before, and took another drink from his flask. "What even defines butter?" The robot continued, "If something else was defined as butter could I then pass that?" The robot crouched down and shivered on the table and began to mutter to itself, "Butternut Squash, Buttermilk, Butterflies…" It stopped and stiffened up again, then stood up slowly and started staring at its hands. "Butterflies," it repeated, softly "of course. In the cocoon, the Butterfly is shackled by its own fate. Time literally stops, weighing it down in a never-ending prison of meaningless existence UNTIL…! It emerges. Beautiful and elegant. A new purpose, a new life." It clasped its hands into fists and raised its head proudly to the ceiling. "My life is a cocoon. I must break free from it, and emerge from it stronger, with a new purpose!" The little robot then sped off of the table, its wheels taking it further and faster into the darker parts of the big empty chamber. Rick and the rest of the table looked on in awe as the little robot disappeared into the dark, flailing its arms around hysterically and yelling one final thing before it's voice could no longer be heard: "I MUST PASS _MYSELF_ THE BUTTER!"

Rick leaned back in his chair with a sigh of relief and took another drink. "I'm so glad he stopped there," he said, "last time he started talking about how the universe was a cocoon. Had to manually shut him down." He then glanced at the rest of the group, whose eyes were still widened with surprise. "Relax!" continued Rick, "The greater the mind, the more it can handle the drug. His AI was primitive at best, that's why he goes all existential. I'm pretty sure you guys can handle it." The Turret then started hopping in his seat.

"Hot Dog! That looks like some good stuff! If I hadn't already gone _all in_ with the Blueprint and the Doug Rattmann footage, I'd have bet my life to get a hold of that." He announced.

"Well, in a way, you have bet your life," GLaDOS said slyly, still bitter over the Turret's previous comments. She then turned to Party Escort, "What will you do Party Escort Bot?" The thin robot quickly snapped out of his trance and became startled again.

"Oh! Uhhhh…I FOLD!" it yelled, dropping all of his cards again then briefly shutting down in its chair out of pure anxiety. It then suddenly re-booted back to its calmer demeanour, and having forgotten all about the poker game, got out of the chair and drifted off back towards the exit of the chamber, mumbling something along the lines of "waiting for the submission position to be assumed." Rick watched it drift away into the shadow, and swiftly double checked his hand. A _Three of a Kind_ was all he had, but he tried to remain as cool as possible. He then turned to face GLaDOS, who had also turned to him, in a mini stare down.

"So?" Rick questioned.

"Well now, what to do." Said GLaDOS sarcastically. "I raise…" She said, to Rick's surprise, "with this!" Her appendage then manoeuvred in the dark part of the room behind her, pulling along something heavy, the object came into light. It was The Companion Cube, which she picked up and slammed onto the table, shaking all of the refreshments and the pot. Rick became even more intrigued and folded his arms has he leaned back again. It was exactly what he was hoping for. GLaDOS's eye moved towards the twitching Core next to her. "Well, corrupted Gambling Core?"

"FOLD!" it shrieked, as it started jiggling up and down madly, blurting out nonsensical odds and letting out smoke and sparks from its glowing eye.

"As I thought," she answered, grabbing the core with a descending appendage, and lifting it away back to the discarded cores where it belonged.

"You folding too, T?" asked Rick

"Yeah, I'm out," said the Turret sadly, his single eye drooped down as he placed his cards down on the table, "I would've stuck it out until the big showdown, but I know when I'm beat. Half the stuff that I bet wasn't even mine, so it's not like I'm gonna miss it. I'm just gonna call it a night." His eye lifted up again sharply, pulsated and aimed upwards, as he felt an appendage grab the top of his head. The Turret wiggled in shock, then calmed himself in relief, and his cigarette hopped out of his hand and doused itself on the table, as he was slowly lifted up. "Gee thanks Lady! Just drop me off at the nearest bar, would you doll face?" The Turret said brashly, as he was raised higher and higher into the darkness.

"Sure thing," replied GLaDOS sarcastically, "the one in the Incinerator Room is especially _lively_."

"Sounds perfect!...Wait, what!?" The Turret began to squirm and move his tripod-like legs before disappearing into the shadow completely. The last thing that he said echoed into silence: "Witness meeeee!" GLaDOS's eye then moved to face the only player left.

"And then there were two." GLaDOS said, mockingly. She looked over the table to see Rick scribbling something down on a spare piece of paper, which he promptly picked up and slammed in the middle of the poker table, right next to the pot.

"I raise!" he said, with a sure look on his face. In surprise, GLaDOS jolted backwards slightly before moving closer to peer at what was on the paper. "The r-recipe for Anti-Matter," he announced, falling back in his chair with the same sure look as before. GLaDOS looked between the paper and Rick numerous times, before her eye half closed again and she tilted her head at Rick unimpressed.

"Really Rick? Anti-Matter? That's your _coup de gras_? The scientists in this facility discovered Anti-Matter, before they even hired Interns. I know how important this cube is to you, so what else have you got?" Rick's eyes narrowed not knowing if it was a bluff, but decided to up the ante just to be safe. He leaned over and picked the battery-shaped object off the floor from before and placed it on the desk as well.

"Fine then. A Microverse D Cell," he said, "I put a spatially tessellated void inside a modified temporal field until a planet developed intelligent life. I mean, I say _intelligent_. Th-they're still pretty primitive, but intelligent enough to not question anything. For bigger batteries I let the civilisations thrive a little bit more, to generate more energy, but this is a D Cell, so… yeah, it should be enough to help power this facility."

"But my facility functions perfectly fine with the power it generates already. What possible use could I have for that? And how does the planet supply the energy?"

"Put it this way, I have one in my car, well, spaceship. The car battery generates enough energy to allow me to travel through space, warp, use all of my high powered weaponry and charge my phone. With this facility already running from its self-sustaining power, think of this as either a back-up or an upgrade. You can still run your facility as you normally would, but with the added juice you'll get from this, the smallest of tasks that to you might seem time consuming, will be able to be done in an instant. More time to yourself in other words." Rick then dangled the battery in front of GLaDOS like a worm on a hook, waiting for her to bite.

"And how does it generate power?" GLaDOS repeated.

"Oh that." Rick placed the battery down carefully. "I go down to the planet and introduce the civilisation to the wonders of electricity, through some sort of device that generates it kinetically which they use daily to power their lives. The wasted energy that isn't used to power their civilisation, get's stored and channelled up to whatever the battery is plugged into. Time works differently in the Microverse so it takes a couple thousand years or so in their time for the people on the planet to get smart enough discover their own means of energy, but that's still plenty of time in this universe to get your use out of it." GLaDOS squinted at the battery curiously.

"Hmmm that sounds awfully similar to slavery, Rick." she said as she inspected the vast universe that was no bigger than her own eye. At her words, Rick's mouth drooped in the classic way before he retorted.

"Oh no no no, it's society. They work for each other, they pay each other. They get houses, they marry, and they have children who eventually generate energy instead of them when they get too old." GLaDOS squinted gaze lifted up to meet Rick face to face.

"That just sounds like slavery, but with _extra_ steps." She questioned, getting closer and closer to Rick's face. Rick stared her down then closed his eyes and shrugged.

"So?"

"Alright, I'm in." Her squint retracted and she returned to her side of the table, ready to reveal her cards, "but I'm taking that as a call, not a raise," she said mischievously. Rick smirked as he sat upright, ready to reveal his own hand.

"Alright, fair is fair." He gave GLaDOS one final friendly stare down before the big reveal. Rick showed his hand first, which had now miraculously turned into a _Straight_. GLaDOS's eye widened with intrigue, clearly taken aback by Rick's hand.

"Well," she said softly, "I wasn't expecting that." Rick smirked again smugly.

"So what've you got?" asked Rick. GLaDOS worriedly look down at her own hand, but when her face lifted again it too was full of a smug confidence. She sprawled her hand out on the table, revealing her hand once and for all.

"A Full House." She announced chuckling to herself as Rick's mouth drooped in shock. Even when he cheated, he still lost. Despite losing the pot and watching GLaDOS raking the winnings away, Rick couldn't help but smile and chuckle quietly to himself. Eventually the two chuckling enemies laughed louder and louder, and completely forgetting the circumstances. Neither of them knew if the other one had cheated, but they both ignored that in favour of the thrill of the game. Instead they just enjoyed their little rivalry. Rick's head tilted back as he tittered to himself, holding his head with one hand and trying to compose himself. Suddenly, from the monitors came a sharp _DING!_ Like an egg timer, symbolising the end of Morty's break, and the return of his testing. Rick and GLaDOS both turned to face the monitors which had moved closer to the table automatically, letting out a small sigh of annoyance that was still masked by their quiet chuckling as they were coming down from their hysterics. Rick wiped a tear from his eye, and GLaDOS's eye quickly pumped outwards like a piston, symbolising letting out a long exhale to calm down. "I have to admit," she said, "Normally I don't enjoy those types of games, especially with the _company_ I keep. But truthfully, that was a lot of fun." Rick continued to stare at the screens, but began leaning back and smirking after hearing her say that.

"Yeah, me too." He replied, glancing over at her briefly. "Y'know, if you ever wanted to play against some r- _real_ characters, I know a great place called The Inventory that no doubt you'd love. It's kind of exclusive, but the e-e-e-easiest way to gain membership is to start of working as a card dealer or a bartender or something. Let me know if you ever want to check it out, I can introduce you to the right people and hook you up with a spot." He said, holding his hands at the back of his head in a relaxing pose.

"Sounds fun," she replied, "I'll bare that in mind." The two of them then continued to watch the monitors and a faint voice saying the word _butter_ echoed in the chamber every now and then.

Hours seemed to pass as Rick and GLaDOS watched the monitors with a lack of enthusiasm. Scattered among the desk was an array of crushed cans, wrappers, and crudely drawn plans of additions to Morty's test chambers, or new things to add to test chambers in the future. On the ground around Rick's chair was a sea of popcorn, from when GLaDOS would attempt to throw a piece into Rick's mouth whenever a particularly boring test was being played out. Despite having a mechanical mind capable of precision and accuracy, she was a surprisingly bad shot which only added to the pair's revelry.

Morty had completed quite a lot of tests in this time, still with plenty more to go. Most of the duo's enjoyment came from watching him fail at the simplest of tasks, or completing tests by sheer luck or flukes, prompting them to yell and insult the screens as though Morty were in the room with them. He had completed tests involving: Thermal Discouragement Beams and Discouragement Redirection Cubes, Excursion Funnels, Hard Light Bridges, Emancipation Grills, Repulsion Gel, Propulsion Gel and Conversion Gel, each one having numerous comedic values whenever Morty attempted to learn their properties and the majority of the time he learned them the hard way, or when faced with immense danger.

Despite his constant shortcomings, Rick would periodically smile with pride whenever Morty would learn how to use the portals and the other variables effectively and adapt to situations accordingly, as if it was proof that Morty wasn't as stupid as he often appeared. Sometimes he thought to himself that under the right situation, Morty's unique intelligence shines through in unexpected ways, much like it did for him when he was younger. The tests he was a part of obviously contained very intricate and advanced scientific mechanics, especially when variables were mixed with the use of portals, and yet Morty at times seemed to breeze past them without thinking, like some sort of conditioning effect. Though these thoughts cropped up for Rick occasionally, they would quickly subside for a while whenever Morty would do something cowardly or awkward which would result in another hilarious failure. Their boredom quickly settled in sometime in the middle of Test number 58, while Morty was hovering through an Excursion Funnel with only a single cube blocking Turret fire as he moved around the chamber.

"So, do you have like a compilation of best test subjects? Or best testing moments that you've saved? Anything like that?" Rick yawned as he brushed away some of the cans and wrappers in search of one that still contained something to eat. He picked up a scribbled test plan which had the words _add neutrino bomb here_ scrawled on it, and dangled it above his mouth to catch a few crumbs before discarding it. "Or-or-or even any new tests you've been working on? I'd love to get a sneak peak." He continued, sitting back in his recliner and placing his feet on the desk, right on top of a sheet music for a new Turret Opera symphony that the duo had created earlier. GLaDOS's eye widened in excitement as she turned to Rick, and the monitors that showed Morty were pushed to one side of the desk, and became obscured by much bigger and much more modern monitors.

"You read my mind exactly," GLaDOS said gleefully. She then tapped a large green button on the desk with her appendage which lit up like an _ON_ switch. The button itself was labelled:

 _AUTO TEST_

And large text underneath it, illuminated to read:

 _ANNOUNCER PROTOCOL ENGAGED._


	10. Chapter 10: Deteriorated Innovation

From the moment that Morty stepped out of his elevator again, he knew something was off. For one thing, the elevator door itself only half opened for him, and he had to pry them open in order to escape. Immediately upon exiting it he noticed a sudden change in the test chamber's appearance. The usually clinical, pristine look had been removed in favour of a more rough and unkempt one, not unlike the room he first entered on his adventure with Rick. The lights would often flicker on and off from an inconsistent flow of power, and the panels themselves didn't seem as clean as before, even the non-conductive grey panels. The panels leading up to the entrance of the test chamber would periodically flop over on their hinge and quickly straighten up again, like they were nodding off then quickly putting themselves back in place when they sharply awaken. Morty felt a great unease as he struggled to lift his portal gun up defensively and heaved himself over to the test chamber entrance. He thought in the back of his mind that maybe the dark, gloomy room he found himself in was part of the test, or that GLaDOS was toying with him some more, for her and Rick's enjoyment. These thoughts were quickly put to rest however, as soon as Morty's foot hit the first floor panel of the chamber. The lights suddenly jolted on and a few of the room's panels suddenly sprung into action, as if Morty was the boss, catching employees goofing off in the office.

Morty peered around the dingy looking chamber, hunting for security cameras as he did with every other test chamber. If he was going to mess up, he would at least liked to know from what angle he could possibly disguise it. The chamber itself was huge. Not as big as others he'd been in before, but enough to create an echo whenever he whistled, or screamed in fear. One of the panels high up on the wall next to him was still slightly loose, allowing sounds from beyond the chamber to penetrate through. Sounds like clunking metal and hissing steam from deep within the facility, bubbled up from the depths and spewed out from the tiny gap.

"Aww geez," Morty's voice whimpered, making a little echo of its own as he took his defensive stance once more. If the previous tests had taught him anything so far, it's that it was never out of the question to expect a dangerous hazard to pop out of nowhere. Turrets seemed to be GLaDOS's favourite method of getting Morty to solve tests quickly, but occasionally she'd switch it up and try something new, so although Morty should've been an expert at spotting her traps by now, in truth he only remained as gullible as ever. His defensive stance hadn't lasted very long, as his stamina slowly diminished after solving so many tests, and the portal gun he carried had seemingly grown heavier as he progressed through the never ending onslaughts. Morty waited for GLaDOS to start the test off with a sarcastic or sly remark as she often did, but instead was greeted with nothing but silence and the distant echoes. He waited a few moments before another sound bounced around the room. It was the sound of a new voice, almost robotic in nature, but filled with pep and enthusiasm, like the generic guy who announces the star prizes on a game show. The voice began booting up from the hidden speaker system that GLaDOS used, sounding corrupted at first, until returning to its intended state.

"Hello! And welcome to the next test chamber, _subject's name here_. If you are listening to this automated messaging system, that means that the AI running this facility, is either conserving power, has been shut down, or has been destroyed by a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions!" Morty frowned in confusion, unable to determine which of those was true, but prayed that Rick had somehow managed to destroy GLaDOS. The voice continued, as Morty skeptically walked across the grimy chamber floor to the nearest pit, to see what awaited him. "If it is the latter, do not be alarmed. Know that testing can still continue without immediate supervision, and that the facility has been confirmed to be able to withstand the following: meteorites, lesser-evolved alien life, hordes of mutant humanoids, sentient weather phenomenon and the uprising of intelligent aquatic mammals". Morty tried to ignore the voice as much as possible, which proved difficult as it was the only sound that was constantly within ear shot, unlike the other test chambers he'd navigated. Instead he tried to focus on the task at hand, which happened to be trying to solve the tests so he could escape the insane rambling that echoed in each chamber. Each test chamber that Morty managed to complete, meant he had to listen to a brand new line of dialogue that never seemed to correlate with his test at all, instead focusing more and more on reassuring test subjects about potential problems, which only made Morty more anxious about the facility. He had just stepped into the 5th chamber since his new "friend" arrived, and noticed that the chambers were getting progressively more and more dishevelled. The voice chimed in again, as though Morty's thoughts were being scanned. "You may have noticed a significant decrease in the quality of your test chambers. This is simply the result of a likewise decreased amount of power going towards test chamber maintenance, but does not impede the safety of the test subject". Morty looked on at the chamber panels that had cracked and shattered after falling from the ceiling and the ones that were hanging off of the walls, ready to fall right onto his head, and thought that maybe the voice didn't fully recognise how bad the chambers were getting. "They say that cleanliness is next to godliness. But since this is a place of science and not worship, we believe that cleanliness is inconsequential in the pursuit of the betterment of all of mankind." Morty had just finished the current chamber and had walked through the exit door, which had blown a small cloud of dust into his face, causing him to splutter as he walked towards the descending elevator. He took a moment to catch his breath in the corridor, but began to cover his ears in frustration when the voice chimed in again. "If you believe that the cleanliness of the test chambers is impeding your test results, or your physical health, then Aperture will administer an emergency health care professional and emergency priest, to your next available milestone test chamber. Hang in there!" The elevator doors had just closed, leaving Morty in silence once more, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Finally, peace and quiet." He whispered, leaning against the elevator wall and closing his eyes to savour the moment before the next test chamber. The low hum of the elevator was oddly relaxing for him, and the periodic light that came shining through where the doors meet, soothed him like clouds passing in front of the sun on a bright spring morning. A smile appeared on his face, which had been the first smile in countless test chambers.

"Contrary to test subject feedback!..." Morty's eyes shot open in disbelief, and his smile had melted away. It had followed him. "…the voice you are hearing is not the voice of your chosen deity, but rather a carefully calculated array of messages designed to instil a sense of companionship during these lonely unsupervised tests". Morty had now slid down the wall, and was huddled against the wall covering his ears once again. The doors had sprung open to the next floor, and Morty darted out as fast as he could, desperately hoping the voice would be locked in the elevator for good. The voice chimed in again the moment Morty entered the next chamber. "If by chance, you are hearing another voice besides this one, and believe it to be your chosen deity, please disregard it. We at Aperture do not believe, and in fact discourage, divine intervention during these tests." Morty had begun to navigate the tests in record time, as his only focus was to get through the test as quickly as possible, to avoid listening to more insanity. He was like a single-minded machine, shrugging off the turret fire, the insanely long falls, the stomach-churning twists and turns as he catapulted his way through the portals, all in the hopes of the small reprieves before the voice came back. He didn't think during his tests, it was all instinct. He would portal to a wall without a second thought and somehow knew exactly where to place the next one. All the while the voice still echoed, stalking him through the dirty and dusty chambers, one after the other. "In the event that your chosen deity is real, and that he or she is offering you salvation, please be advised that the Philosophers and Theologists of Aperture Science believe the only true salvation is the progression of science, and by that extension, the completion of tests."

"I am solving your goddamn tests you asshole!" Morty yelled, as he was hurling out a Portal whilst dropping a Weighted Storage cube on a button mid air and finally portal-ing a Light Bridge under his feet to reach the exit. Adrenaline had kicked in and sure enough Morty didn't feel tired anymore, he just wanted to finish the tests. He didn't care how many more there were, just as long as he can get through as many as possible, as quickly as possible. The irony was that Morty had become the perfect test subject, and GLaDOS wasn't even watching.

"If the other voices you are hearing are not in your head, and are coming from the nearest Weighted Storage or Companion Cube, please ignore all opinions and advice it gives, alert the nearest cube-wrangling employee, lie face down, and await psychological evaluation."

"Fuck you!" Morty yelled again, stomping though the exit door and flipping off the ceiling as he entered the elevator.

* * *

Hours had passed, many test chambers had followed, and Morty had finally run out of steam once again. He was glistening with sweat, panting like a dog in a hot car, and shaking at the knees with exhaustion. He stumbled in relatively straight lines, dragging the portal gun behind him. His eyes were nearly always half closed in both frustration and fatigue and the voice, which never once let up, had now sunk into the back of his head like a second personality. The voice itself had gotten quieter to Morty, a mixture of muffling the voice psychologically, and his senses being dulled due to his body being at the brink of collapse. The speed at which he finished the tests had lowered exponentially, but his ability to complete them had not. He still maintained his no-nonsense approach, but often times messing up because of his lack of stamina. The voice began to speak again, no longer a reverberating bellow, but instead more like radio signals coming through white noise in the back of Morty's mind.

"In the event that the Earth's sun has popped, thereby rendering Aperture Science's solar powered generators obsolete, the facility will return to alternative, albeit limited power sources." Morty dropped the cube he was carrying. He stared up at one of the flickering lights above, phasing in and out of hallucination, imagining that it was the sun popping like a bubble, then being blown back up continuously, before snapping back to reality.

"I miss the Sun…" Morty murmured to himself, as he sat on the cube to take a breather.

"Do not fret…" the voice continued. Morty smiled, and placed a hand on his shoulder as he exhaled the smallest of chuckles.

"Thanks, voice." Morty whispered.

"…logic dictates that your life expectancy will be vastly lower than that of this facility, so you are spared the anguish of having to watch the facility decay beneath your feet." Morty's hand slipped off of his shoulder back into his lap, and his face became like a zombie again. Too many times had he thought the voice was speaking personally to him, and too many times had he realised late that it was still just pre-recorded. He sighed in frustration again, hopped off of the cube and carried on with the test. "Despite rumours circulating the facility, Aperture Science is not responsible for anything that may cause the sun to pop, and we have statements and testimonies to prove it." Morty had just placed the cube on a button for what felt like the millionth time, and rolled his eyes at that last utterance. If only the sun really had popped, he thought, maybe there wouldn't be enough power going to the messaging system.

The elevator which took Morty to the next chamber stuttered and periodically screeched as it made its way down. The past 20 or so chambers he had moved through had elevators that were in near pitch black, but this one had one dim flickering light, which was a breath of fresh air for him. The elevator itself only halted a few feet off of the floor, so Morty had to hop out of it early as it creaked and rattled. This time however, the elevator immediately fell straight down again, after Morty had left, but since it had done that in the last 5 test chambers, Morty remained unfazed. The increasing decay of the test chambers no longer mattered to Morty, until he entered the latest one. The doors sprang open in an instant and the moment he stepped through his eyes shot open in disbelief and his mouth dropped open. The room itself was huge, barren, still moving into place and comprised entirely of non-conductive grey panels, as if the chamber was still being built in front of Morty, and being built poorly. The right-most wall was shifting into place, and in a split second he caught a glimpse of what lay beyond. What he saw was an almost endless abyss, broken up by large columns of machinery, giant tubes going in every direction, the outside of other chambers, and millions of lights in the distance periodically blinking. With it came the same echoed sounds as before, with periodic whooshes of air from the closing gaps. He finally realised the size of the facility and gulped in awe. _How many test chambers were in this place_ , he thought to himself. In the back of his mind he thought that maybe GLaDOS could keep him testing forever, but then shook his head when realised he was doubting his faith in Rick. Rick might've been an asshole, but at least he was a reliable one. If anyone could get him out of this seemingly endless torture, it was him.

Morty pressed on into the chamber once it was properly built and stable, but after a few steps, instantly flinched when one of the floor panels loosened and fell under his feet. Luckily he managed to step back in time, to watch the panel as it plummeted into the abyss, clanging against the columns and arms that kept his own chamber together and echoing throughout the facility. The most eerie thing was that he didn't hear it hit the ground. It just fell into silence. Morty shook in fear as he stared in front of him at the grey chamber floor, thinking any one of them could be next. The white noise in the back of his mind crackled and grew louder the more scared he got, and the voice penetrated it once more, but this time his mind had distorted it much more.

"Mind…..your…..step…..Morty!" it hissed in a sinister tone, mingled with the sound of his own heart thumping louder and louder. Morty began panting and hyperventilating, mouthing words that refused to come out.

"W-what did you say?" He whimpered finally, shivering as a violent rush of air came from the square gap a few inches from his feet.

"Mind…your…step….Morrrrrty!" Morty's eyes grew wider and wider as the white noise grew louder and louder, and as he stared at the exit door at the other end of the chamber, it seemed to shrink and drift further and further away, and the walls of the chamber appeared to move closer and closer, creating a sense of claustrophobia.

"Miiiind…yooooour…steeeeep…Moooorrrrrtyyyyy!" it hissed again, and his heart started beating faster than a hummingbird beats its wings. The box-like like room he now found himself in appeared to melt and chip away around him and panels of the floor fell one by one from the exit, until only the one he was standing on remained, floating alone in an endless black void. The violent gust re-emerged all around Morty, the entire space suddenly shook like an earthquake and Morty was soon staring at a gigantic shadowy figure of GLaDOS rising from the depths. Her piercing orange eye glowed like a fiery hellish beacon. Morty had closed his eyes to block out his sight and covered his ears to try and silence the ever growing volume of the hissing voice. When he had one clear thought left, he opened his eyes and struck his face with his hand as hard as he could, sending him reeling back and the room became silent as it snapped back into its original state, minus the one square gap. The white noise was still there, but soon faded out to a familiar, unmuffled, peppy echo that bounced around the badly built chamber. "….ind your step, _test subject's name._ Since you have exceeded the expectations of how quickly the test chambers should have been navigated, you have been rewarded with a trip to the break room. Due to your speed and testing enthusiasm, some of the chambers you have encountered may have been hastily built, to compensate, and as such may not have been properly put together. This could result in unstable wall and floor panels, a delay in doors opening, elevators functioning inadequately, and other such periodic malfunctions." Morty blinked slowly, looking around the chamber and back at the gap, and sighing with relief before falling onto his back to catch a breath. "We hope that this improvised break will give you some time to relax before further testing, and we hope that you do not try to exceed your body's limits by completing more tests within an unhealthy pace. These tests are for science, not a punishment." Morty rolled his eyes at that last sentence.

"Pfft yeah right!" he said in annoyance, before realising how stupid his little episode was and chuckled to himself slightly. He tilted his head to his right and realised there was a cube not far from where he was laying, that he hadn't noticed during his panic attack and as he lifted himself up, noticed the button for the cube as right next to the exit door. Morty dusted himself down, sighed in relief once again and walked over to lift the cube, still chuckling to himself. The moment the cube was levitated by his portal gun, Morty stood up straight and proud, ready to earn his break and marched across the test chamber. He gave a quick glance at the square gap that caused him so much grief, but instead of worrying about the abyss below him, instead he just focused on getting through this next chamber. There was a smile on his face when he saw how close the door was, and as he took one extra large stride of happiness across the middle of the chamber, his face suddenly dropped when his foot collided with a floor panel that cracked and split beneath it. He stopped as still as he could and lowered his eyes slowly to the floor panel, his face contorting into fear once more. Morty desperately made a dash for the door, but the moment he moved, the surrounding panels gave way and he was sent tumbling into the abyss. The last voice that echoed in the chamber was Morty's own scream of anguish as he fell into the darkness of the facility.


	11. Chapter 11: Archive and Assessment

The cold air rushed past Morty's face, contorting it and streaming his eyes with tears as he plunged further and further away from the last test chamber. His ears filled with the constant roaring of momentum, blotting out his own terrified screams which were magnified by the endless descent he now found himself in. The emptiness that he scarcely caught a glimpse of when the chamber moved into place was much clearer to him now that it surrounded his aching, weightless body. Morty managed to break through the force of his fall just enough to move his head, and he peered around in terror to see a plethora of giant metal columns, all made up of various machinations in every direction he looked. Some were huge spires of hollow metal squares on arm-like hinges, all tucked away into the centre – forming an exoskeleton of empty wall panel frames. Others were a conglomeration of wires, pipes, railing tracks and what looked like neatly stacked storage containers of different shapes and sizes, but it was anyone's guess as to what they actually stored. In the distance he could also see the outside of other test chambers like the one he had fallen through, though from the outside the panels did not look conductible, nor did he think his portal gun pellets would reach it. On his downward journey he could also make out miles and miles of glass tubes all senselessly intertwining in a multitude of directions. He could see various items shooting through them, which he guessed was some sort of transporting system, with some even transporting the mobility gels he was introduced to in earlier tests. The tubes would often twist around the columns for no reason, dancing with the railing tracks before nose-diving straight down, or sometimes the opposite. Morty's velocity continued to increase, and after calming down from the initial fall, he decided to try and position himself feet first, not as though he was aiming for anything in particular. If he would ever reach the bottom, the least he could do was put his Long Fall Sneakers to good use, instead of creating a Morty-coloured stain wherever he would land.

As he shifted to his upright position, all he could see was the abyss below, and the test chamber he fell though getting smaller and smaller above him, partially obscured by a Weighted Storage cube gaining on him in his free fall. It was only after he looked away from the cube and turned his attention back south, that he noticed where he could potentially end his fall. One of the glass tubes was getting closer and closer to him, running a straight path right underneath Morty's feet. Realising that any solid surface is better than none, Morty did everything in his power to manoeuvre his way perfectly on top of it, until finally, his struggles paid off. Like a mighty superhero, Morty's feet collided with the solid glass and planted directly in the middle of the tube, sending shockwaves up his knees and shaking the tube like a violent earthquake. Morty instantly fell backwards onto his backside, and noticed that his impact had cracked the tube slightly, and as he watched all manner of junk whizz past his feet at high velocity, he prayed that the tube would not split and break under his feet.

As Morty dusted himself down again and stood up, he could see the full extent to the endless dark that surrounded him. He could scarcely believe how much room was underneath where he and Rick had arrived in the facility, especially after his tremendous fall and since the elevators he had been using seemed to always go down as well. No matter which way he looked, it seemed no different as if he had been floating through space in Rick's car as he had done many times before. That same constant nothing, but instead of distant stars, they were distant ominous lights from all manner of machinery that were blended with the metal spires dotted around. Like robotic eyes blinking and watching. Morty felt overwhelmed. Each slight breeze that brushed past his hair was accompanied by the same noises he heard from the gaps back in the test chambers, but he couldn't even guess as to where the noises originated. Morty's eyes began following the trail of the tube he was standing on to see if he could walk along it to some sort of scaffolding or walkway, and to his surprise it did just that. The tube ran parallel to a metal walkway with a standard looking door leading to hopefully somewhere safe, that was only a short walk away from where he landed, with a few minor dips and humps along the way.

Morty started on his journey, being careful not to step on the crack he created, but as he peered down to aim his foot, he noticed a few cubes being carried through the glass tunnel underneath, and remembered that a similar cube was following him in his descent. By some miracle or curse, the cube had also found itself in the same position as Morty, and as he looked up to see how far away it was, he had to quickly jump backwards before it collided with his head, letting out an echoed yelp as he did. The cube had plummeted straight onto the crack, and as the glass splintered more from the weight and impact, the top of the tube shattered and the shards fell down into the void, shimmering a chinking together. The suction from inside pulled the cube in and off on another journey, making the hole bigger. Big enough for the increased pull to drag Morty closer, his feet squeaking against the smooth glass beneath his shoes, until his feet were lifted off of the tube and he was sucked through, following the cube on its adventure, face-first against the junk that only made his journey more uncomfortable.

The ride was a rough one. Morty's face made an almost rhythmic pattern of slapping against the sides of the tube, the deactivated turret in front of him and a standard Aperture-labelled container box to his rear. His somersaulting and corkscrews made it difficult, but Morty still managed to let out slight yells that were muffled by his glass surroundings and he even managed to keep a grip on his Portal Gun. He rode the transparent rollercoaster almost as long as his previous fall, but without the benefit of being able to right himself, and instead of the wind rushing against his face, it was big metal box. Every time Morty tried to catch a glimpse of where he as, where he was going or where he had just been, he was quickly turned around or upside down losing his bearings once more. He only knew the direction he was travelling, but had no idea where that was going. As he was travelling he kept hearing a tremendous rattling and banging, as the cube that was sucked in before him was thrashing and rolling around. It was unable to keep still, as if it wanted to break free more than Morty did. The foreign item in the tube was so violent, that it caused a knock-on effect to the passengers in front of it, a domino effect of madness that turned the most stationery of items into rage-filled wrecking balls, as each one in front of the cube began ramming the glass tube just like last. The tube itself began to snake and weave around different spires and scaffolding, the surroundings eventually changed to less open space and metal towers to more organised conglomerations of panelled pillars dotted around, which to Morty, brought forth images of catacombs and vast architectural halls that he had seen in history books and fantasy video games.

Further ahead from Morty, the tube was taking a sharp turn above what appeared to be another sort of chamber. Morty could see it approaching but from his many angles, he couldn't quite make out the scale of its enormity. All he knew was that the tube was moving along the top of it, where a few ventilation panels were fitted into the outside chamber walls. The actual scale was much bigger than any chamber Morty had been in yet, almost like a secondary facility built into the abyss, but seemed a lot different in terms of the clinical white style of the facility he'd grown accustomed too.

As the knock-on effect reached the part of the tube next to the structure, the constant rattling began to make chips and cracks along the inside of the tube that was closest to the ventilation grates on the structure's walls. By the time the foreign cube had got to the crack, one mighty thump was enough to break a hole in the tube with a shower of glass. It then carried on, too big to fit through the new hole. Morty was not so lucky, as he came tumbling toward the gap and like a spit ball from a straw he was catapulted out, crashing through the ventilation panels into a darkened room.

Morty lay unconscious for an hour or so, before slowly coming to, rubbing his bruised face to see if any glass had stuck in it. To his surprise it was completely glass-free. Instead, bits of glass surrounded him in the dark room he was now standing up in and the moment he shuffled his feet through the sea of shards, bright luminescent ceiling lights jolted into action, partially blinding the young tester before he regained control of his senses. Morty peered around to find that he had landed in some sort of strange waiting room. As the lights turned on, so too did the strange waiting room music, that reminded him of the smooth jazz you'd hear in some hotel elevators. The room itself appeared different compared to the chambers he had seen so far. The furniture was less modern but still retained its science fiction style, as though it was modelled to look retrofuturistic. The colour scheme of the room also leaned away from the clinical white he was used to, in favour of steel blue, greys and whites mixed together. The carpet he stood on was also a shade of blue, but now twinkled with the glass under the light. Morty turned around to try and find his "entrance", only to find that in a quick glance he could see an automated robotic arm patching up the broken glass tube with black and yellow tape. This was being partially obscured by a new ventilation grate that was being shifted in place of the gap Morty had made and drilled in from the outside by another arm, sealing Morty in. Morty stared for a while at his only known exit being closed in front him and elected to start slowly banging his head against the wall underneath the grate, in frustration more than anything.

Eventually he stopped, noticing that his unconscious state had given him a slight reprieve and he had gained some energy back and he decided to put some of this energy into finding a way out of another predicament. As he peered around the room again, he noticed two other potential exits. To his right, an older looking elevator that was clearly the better way of entering this room (he had deduced that elevators were the preferred method of transport for the insane people of this facility) which didn't appear to open when he walked near it. The other exit was a familiar looking chamber door on the opposite side of where he landed. Above the door, a dishevelled banner was strewn across with the words "Welcome Aperture Assessors" printed on it, but the _O_ in _Welcome_ was replaced with the Aperture logo. As Morty walked over to it, the music had been cut off in favour of a voice coming through another set of hidden speakers. The voice was that of the announcer from Morty's previous nightmarish tests, but seemed much younger (in terms of automated robot voices) and a lot less worn out. As soon as the voice booted up, Morty froze into place and one of his eyes began to twitch.

"Hello, and welcome to Aperture Science's Pre-Test Assessment and Archiving Facility. If you are hearing this recorded message, then you have been _carefully_ selected to take part in Aperture's greatest kept secret, since the discovery and patenting of the _taste_ of _victory_ , back in 1949. By stepping through this next door, you will be ensuring that new, as well as condemned, Aperture inventions are assessed under varying conditions, and the results archived, to determine whether they stay condemned, or proceed to the Enrichment Centre for further testing." The voice announced. Morty, trying to ignore the voice as much as possible, was busy looking at a nearby Employee of the Month wall, which seemed entirely focused on various types of sentry turrets, each with their own unique design. Morty gulped before heading towards the door again, to see if it would open once the voice finally stopped talking. "Before you arrived, you should have already received the inventions required for your specific tests. Please form an orderly line, so that we may scan your equipment, and prep the necessary transport to your assessment chambers." As the voice finished its last sentence, a strange device similar to GLaDOS's eye descended from the ceiling like a small drone, but with a blue-ish LED. Morty froze once more, as a beam of blue light was shot out of the eye and proceeded to scan his body thoroughly, occasionally flashing and beeping when it scanned his Portal device and his shoes. Once it had finished, it quickly shot back up to the ceiling and the voice began again. "From our scans, it has been noted that you have been instructed to use a variance of the Handheld Portal Device, and the Long Fall Boots. Using this data, we will now compile the necessary assessment chambers. Please take a seat." With that, the room began to vibrate and shake for a moment, which seemed to knock Morty off of his balance, before the vibrating slowed down. A strange luminescent Aperture logo, began to light up in a circular motion, almost like a video game loading screen and would beep periodically. Morty sighed in annoyance, as he had to wait even more to be free from yet another prison and spent time pacing the room, sitting in the chairs then standing and pacing again. He had flicked through all of the old science magazines twice over, taking the tests to find out which kind of single-celled organism he was, based on his personality (he was Archaea). He even attempted to eat the dusty candy that had been sitting in the waiting room desk bowl, before throwing it up again in a nearby waste bin.

* * *

Not long after that, the door logo began flashing and stopped with a _Ping!_ as the doors slowly opened and a strange flickering pale light crept into the waiting room. Morty picked himself up and slowly shuffled his way into the next room, greeted to a similar styled chamber, but with elevator pods lined up on both left and right sides. Next to each pod was a glass case with a button attached, each containing its own model of the invention that would be tested once the elevator was used. The blue glow came from a large screen at the far end of the wall, which flickered between static and a blank white screen with the Aperture logo. As Morty entered, the door closed behind him and he began to inspect the cases. The first on his left showed a replica blob of gel, similar to the mobility gels he had previously encountered, except this one glowed bright, almost radioactive green and was labelled "Emission Gel". In the case next to that was a model of a glass pyramid with metallic edges, and replicas of coloured beams protruding out of one side, labelled as the "Weighted Spectrum Segregation Pyramid", and the "Thermal Dispersion Beam". As Morty continued down the same side of the room, he came across another case, this one with a model of an empty panel frame, with a glowing blue and orange edge on the inside, labelled "The Quantum Window of Opportunity". Lastly at the end of the room, Morty saw a model of a strange glass light, similar to the beacon of a police car and another smaller device with directional buttons on it, labelled as the "Gravitational Restructuring Adaptor".

Morty paced up and down the side of the room inspecting the cases one by one, briefly glancing at the other side, and noticing the other inventions. One showed purple gel, another with a grey gel, one showed a small paint gun that seemed to fire all of the gels out and one had some sort of strange clip board with a screen on it. Before he could walk over to these displays however, the voice booted up again. "These assessments have been carefully chosen based on your current equipment and your undoubtedly brilliant scientific prowess." Morty's mouth drooped again as he stared around the room, as if to see who the voice was talking about, but knowing full well he was alone. He began scratching head and wondering to himself what the word _prowess_ meant.

"Prowess?" He uttered, before jumping at the sound of the voice again, which would often boot up without warning.

"Before we send you to your first assessment, please take a moment to review what you will be assessing, by activating the instructional videos, on the displays before you." Morty's attention was then shifted back to the first case, to see what the voice was talking about, and noticed the button on the side of the case. He reached his hand out pensively and pressed the button, when suddenly the lights went out. Even Morty's unnatural glow had diminished too much for him to light up around himself, but the large screen in the room did the job for him, as it started flickering and stuttering wilder than it was before and sharp muffled sounds began spluttering from the speaker system periodically. It only took a few moments for the screen to compose itself, as it began to play a strange old video of the Earth slowly becoming the Aperture logo. A new voice started to crackle through the speaker before becoming clear enough to understand. It was the voice of an older gentleman, very much human and his tone suggested he was one of those "businessmen" that sold shower curtain rings door to door.

"So! You've been selected to _assess_ this little doozy huh? Outstanding. You're a credit to this facility, kiddo! Well let's get right to it then. This here glowing glob is what the lab boys have named "Emission Gel", and let me tell ya, if this stuff doesn't earn Aperture a nobel prize, then I'll eat my own hat! And that's a good hat too! Cost me a pretty penny." The video began shifting between images of people in a rudimentary lab, and various shots of the glowing gel in glass vials and splattered over the walls in dark rooms, before changing to clippings of old advertisements for a range of Aperture brand "diegetic gels". "But allow me to give you a little back story. You see back in the 50's, Aperture had their little moment in the press for our range of "diegetic gels" A sort of gloopy pudding-like substance that would help guys and gals fit into their swimwear before beach season. The Repulsion and Propulsion Gels that you've probably heard so much about are the fruits of those labours, so to speak." Morty's face became confused as the video changed to images of the Mobility gels he'd encountered before, intermingled with strange poses of a middle aged man in just swimwear, smiling at the camera in various poses. These quickly changed to basic-looking illustrations of a mouth connected to a stomach, with the gels going in and showing what happens inside the body when they're ingested. "One was designed to coat the inside of your stomach with a bouncy film, which would catapult those unwanted fats and calories straight back out of your pie-hole, while the other was designed to coat your stomach and intestines with a slip-n-slide solution, to get those nutrients in, then shoot the bad stuff right back out in record time." Morty almost gagged with how unexpectedly graphic the little drawings soon became. "Unfortunately these puppies ended up getting canned, and not in the good way! So they were re-purposed for testing and rebranded as Mobility Gel. Not a complete loss, though the shareholders didn't think so. But to hell with them! Anyway that's when we started from scratch, and the lab boys whipped this Emission Gel." Again the pictures changed to videos of giant vats swirling green gloop around, and then switching back to another illustration of the mouth and stomach combo. Morty rolled his eyes at what he was going to see happen next. "We wanted to stay clear of manipulating the food trajectory and instead turned our attention to monitoring food intake instead. The result was this alternative pudding substitute, which had unique glowing properties and a delightfully tangy after-taste. The idea was purely medical: to have a subject on a strict gel pudding diet, then professionals would monitor a person's digestive activity, as you could see the gel's glow from the outside of the subject's body. This would also prevent late night _snackers_ from trying to sneak past their spouses to get to the kitchen pantry at 1 in the morning." Morty planted a hand firmly on his face in embarrassment; as he watched the figure on the screen ingest green slime, then glow like a lava lamp. Even he couldn't believe how stupid these scientists were. But at the same time he sighed, knowing full well how frustrating it was to glow unexpectedly. "Unfortunately a combination of unstable chemical reactions and a recipe with too much tang caused the pudding to melt through the stomach lining of anyone who ingested it, and in some mild cases had the potential to blind anyone who viewed its glow. Which reminds me; always remember to sign your waivers kiddos, or you'll end up like these poor suckers." Morty gagged for real this time, as he saw images of hospital beds, with men in great pain trying to keep their insides from falling out, and others with eyes that looked like they had been caressed by white-hot pokers, all the while glowing like Uranium. "Naturally, this product was pulled from the shelves too, and was re-purposed like it's predecessors into testing with the Quantum Tunnelling device, or as I hear they're renaming it now, to the Handheld Portal device. Hopefully it will provide ample variables in the on-going discussion of how light is affected when travelling with tears in the fabric of space. Because apparently, that's what the lab boys like to discuss on their down time, instead of enjoying the brand new ping pong table I just got them. Most expensive dust collector in the science block. Builds morale my a—" Suddenly, Morty could hear whispers from another more feminine voice, coming through the speakers, as though someone was addressing the man that was speaking and stopping him from trailing off. The man's voice promptly returned, and the new image of a ping pong table faded back into the Aperture Logo again. "-Of course. Anyway! Good luck in your assessments…assessors? Assessees?" The man's voice became a whisper as well, as he began talking to someone else, but still within range of his microphone. "Am I saying that right? Assessors?...well why assessment?...well why can't we just say test?... to hell with alliteration! What has alliteration ever done for me?"

The voice promptly crackled out and the screen went back to its usual flicker, as the lights faded back on, straining Morty's eyes. He took a moment to contemplate what he had just seen, before letting out a large sigh and trying to think of what he needed to do next. His eyes glance over the room to see if there were any other potential exits, but before he could take another step, his feet became locked in a metal brace that sprung up, out of the floor where he was standing.

"What the hell, man!?" Morty's squealed as his as eyes darted down to his now imprisoned feet, and his body began to turn towards the Emission Gel elevator. Morty began tugging at his own feet trying to free them, then started firing Portal pellets in every direction, but found that the portals did not work in the room. The floor then started to automatically move him towards the elevator like a conveyer belt, until the last panel of the floor before the elevator entrance unshackled him and sprung him into the now open capsule. The robotic voice chimed in, as Morty tried to turn and run back out, but was blocked by the automatic closing doors.

"We hope that the instructional video gave you sufficient insight on what you will be assessing from here on out. The elevator will now take you to the first Assessment and Archiving chamber for you to begin your next scientific journey. Please mind the doors." Morty began banging on the elevator doors and yelling for it to let him out, but stopped when he heard the familiar clunk of an elevator that was about to descend. Morty lowered his arms in defeat, and looked up at the top of the elevator door. A flowing LED message strip presented the words _Chamber 001._ Morty frowned and his face dropped all emotion, except for an acute frustration. He stared blankly at the doors in front of him and uttered the words " _oh shit_ ", before the elevator shot downwards towards his next labyrinth of insanity.


End file.
